Schizophrenic stabbed mother and sister to death
THE mentally-ill son of a bagel tycoon has been found to have stabbed his mother and sister to death at the £2.5 million family home.
Joshua Cohen, 28, has been locked up at Broadmoor high security hospital since the frenzied attack on mother-of-five Louise Cohen, 64, and Hannah Cohen, 33, in August last year.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard, QC, ruled him unfit to stand trial as he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia “characterised by thought disorder and paranoid delusions”. Following a three-day trial of issue, an Old Bailey jury found Cohen did commit the act of killing the two women in the basement of their six-bedroom mansion in Golders Green, north London.
The court heard that Cohen had worked at the renowned familyowned Beigel Bake bakery in Brick Lane, in the East End.
The sequence of events on August 11 last year were captured on CCTV at the house.
Cohen went into the kitchen and was followed by the two women, who were then attacked in the basement laundry room.
Prosecutor Sarah Whitehouse, QC, told jurors: “Hannah and Louise Cohen were never seen again. In the next few minutes both of them were stabbed to death in the laundry room in the basement.”
Cohen used two large kitchen knives, an iron or meat tenderiser to attack the two women.
Mrs Cohen suffered 13 stab wounds to her head, face and body and was bludgeoned over the head.
She also suffered cuts to her hands as she desperately tried to fend off her attacker.
Her daughter Hannah would have died in seconds after Cohen stabbed her in the neck, severing the carotid artery.
Cohen emerged minutes later with blood on his head and legs, carrying bloodstained clothes upstairs, jurors heard.
He changed into a red hooded top and grey tracksuit bottoms before leaving the house, the court was told.
He was arrested in nearby Golders Hill Park the following day and charged with two counts of murder.
Giving evidence, Nathan Cohen tearfully described how he found his mother’s and sister’s bodies.
Two large blood-stained kitchen knives were later recovered from the kitchen bin and basement.
The blade on one was chipped in the attack on Mrs Cohen, leaving the tip embedded in her head.