Bloody footprint traps murderer 30 years on
Prostitute’s killer who struck on Sherlock Holmes’ doorstep brought to justice by DNA match
‘His bare foot was pressed against the skirting board next to her’
A 30-YEAR-OLD cold-case murder near the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes was solved after detectives traced the killer’s bloody footprint at the scene of the crime.
Sandip Patel, who ran errands for his father’s newsagent Sherlock Holmes News on Baker Street, in west London, stabbed Marina Koppel, a prostitute, more than 140 times in her rented flat in nearby Chiltern Street on Aug 8 1994.
The 21-year-old student’s fingerprints were found on a carrier bag in Koppel’s kitchen but he was not treated as a suspect at the time. He was charged with her murder last year after his DNA was matched to hair on the victim’s ring and he was linked by a bloody footprint on a skirting board.
During the attack, he forced Koppel to give up her pin number and used the bank card to withdraw money near his home, it was alleged.
Patel, now 51, had denied murder but declined to give evidence in his defence.
The Old Bailey jury took three hours and 10 minutes to find him guilty.
Jurors heard that Colombian-born Mrs Koppel had met her husband David while working as a hotel chambermaid.
She later worked as a masseuse and offered sexual services to around 100 “well-to- do” men “if the price was right”, jurors were told.
Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said little was known of Mrs Koppel’s last movements.
On the evening of Aug 7 1994, she had entered a poker tournament at the Victoria Sporting Club casino and met a client at a Heathrow hotel before returning to London.
The mother- of-two’s last known sighting was a visit to Midland Bank on Baker Street at 1.42pm the next day.
That evening, Mr Koppel returned to her flat near Baker Street Tube station to find his wife had been murdered.
She was covered in blood and wearing only black lace-up lingerie that she might wear if she was expecting one of her clients, jurors were told.
Emlyn Jones, prosecuting, said she had been stabbed more than 140 times during the “sustained and savage” attack.
He told jurors: “Marina Koppel was brutally murdered. It has taken a terribly long time to solve it, but we now have evidence that she had this defendant’s hair stuck to the ring she was wearing when she was attacked and killed; and his bare foot was pressed against the skirting board next to her.
“And that, the prosecution say, can only be because it was he who killed her all those years ago.”
Even though Patel’s fingerprints were found on an unbranded plastic bag in the kitchen, he was not treated as a suspect because he would have likely handled bags from nearby Sherlock Holmes News.
Patel only became a confirmed suspect in 2022 after his DNA was matched to a hair found by a scientist on the ring in 2008. Although technology was still not advanced enough then for scientists to get a DNA profile, it was preserved until 2022 and re-examined.
The bloody footprint was found at the scene in 1994 and matched to Patel after he was made a suspect.
Mr Jones told jurors: “You may have little trouble concluding that if those footprints were made in Marina’s wet blood, that can only be because they were left by her killer – someone who was in that room, barefoot, at the time of her blood being on the skirting board.
“All these years later, they have been identified – they are the defendant’s prints – they were made by the sole of his left foot.”
Following his arrest, Patel denied knowing the victim but said he would run errands for his father. He was rearrested in 2023 after his footprint was identified and answered “no comment” to questions.
Mr Koppel died in 2005, never discovering who murdered his wife.
Patel, of north London, looked up at the gallery as the verdict was delivered. He was remanded into custody to be sentenced at the Old Bailey today.