Pictured here are the murderers who have been jailed this year for shocking crimes in south London.
Their victims include children, flatmates, partners or even strangers who were just unfortunate to come across their paths.
One is a violent 17-year-old who killed a 14-year-old boy, while another killed and buried his girlfriend.
Marques Walker
%image('17575484', type="article-full", alt="Marques Walker, from Bromley, was jailed for life for murdering a 14-year-old")Marques Walker, of Jennifer Road in Bromley, was jailed after he stabbed 14-year-old Jermaine Cools to death in Croydon.
Walker, now 17, was aged 16 on November 18, 2021 when he entered a fight, pulled out a knife and ran towards Jermaine who was on the floor defenceless. He stabbed Jermaine seven times.
Walker then ran off through the streets of Croydon still carrying the knife while Jermaine was rushed to hospital where he died.
Jermaine’s mum, Lorraine Dudek, said: "I will never forgive the defendant for taking my baby away from me, and robbing me of the opportunity to see him turn from a boy to a man."
A fugitive hunt lasted for nearly six weeks until on December 27 was finally arrested when officers went to an address in Upper Norwood about an unrelated matter and found Walker inside.
Walker was charged with the murder and remanded to HMP Feltham, where guards found rap lyrics in his cell which bragged about his attack on Jermaine.
The lyrics said: “We had mummzy grieving. I left mandem spleeching. I had mandem looking at his wounds like s**t den I think I’m bleeding."
Walker was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 19 years before a parole board can consider releasing him.
Robbie Munoz
%image('16887782', type="article-full", alt="Robbie Munoz, 22, claimed he was acting in self-defence but a jury rejected his claims")Robbie Munoz, 22, of Belmont Road in Wallington, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years after he stabbed dad-of-two Reece Williams to death with a 30cm hunting knife.
Reece, a 29-year-old from Greenwich, was on his way home from the pub when he stopped to talk with a group of people who were sitting on benches by the river near Welland Street.
Reece knew most of the group but he did not know Munoz, who was there with a girl inhaling balloons full of nitrous oxide and drinking.
After becoming annoyed by Munoz’s behavour, Reece assaulted him. After the assault was over and Reece had walked away, Munoz then pulled the knife out of his bag and chased Reece, swinging it at him.
Reece died in hospital just hours later.
Munoz, who refers to himself as Taser or Taze, was a habitual knife carrier and had previously struck a care home worker with a samurai sword which he kept under his bed after they asked him to turn his music down.
Reece’s family said he had an incredible relationship with his two young children and was also a role model for his young nieces and nephews.
“He was a caring person, he had lots of respect for people and knew that manners were free,” Reece’s mum said.
Read the full story - Reece Williams family tell killer to ‘rot in prison’.
Godfrey Madondo
%image('17429192', type="article-full", alt="Godfrey Madondo stabbed 19-year-old Jeremiah Sewell to death ")Godfrey Madondo, 20, murdered 19-year-old Jeremiah Sewell following a “chance meeting” in Beckenham Place Park early on July 16 last year.
During a murder trial the jury were told that the motive “appears to be simply because the deceased came from Beckenham” and the defendant and his friends were from Peckham.
Jeremiah Sewell was asked “what end’s you with?” and when he replied “I’m a B-boy" he was stabbed twice in the neck within seconds.
Madondo fled the scene but was arrested the next day and was later found guilty of murder.
Madondo was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 24 years.
Khelsi Johnson-Davies and Leah Simmonds, who cleaned and threw away Madondo’s bloodstained clothes, will be sentenced in August.
Read the full story here - Jeremiah Sewell killer and two women who covered it up.
Mark Moodie
%image('17548013', type="article-full", alt="Mark Moodie will spend a minimum of 20 years in prison")
Mark Moodie, 55, of Nightingale Place in Woolwich, murdered 24-year-old Maureen Gitau disposed of her body in a bin then tried to smear her name in court.
Maureen was last seen by her family at her aunt’s birthday party at their shared home in Deptford where she had been “in a good mood, playing with the children”.
Maureen left the party to meet Moodie, a friend from work, who took her to a block of flats on Blackheath Hill where he was employed as a caretaker – she never left the building alive.
“You have never given an account of what happened between the two of you in Richmond House. No one but you knows why you killed her,” Judge Nicholas Lavender said.
CCTV footage showed Moodie moving a large communal waste bin around the basement of Richmond House.
He put her body in the waste bin and covered it with sacks of rubbish before putting it out for collection, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward told the court.
It was then taken to a processing plant on Landmann Way in Deptford on December 8 where it was “inevitably” incinerated.
At his sentencing hearing a statement from Maureen’s mum, Jane, addressed Moodie directly.
“You are a coward and a cold-hearted murderer,” she said. “You preyed on a vulnerable and sweet girl who would never hurt anyone. You've never even given us a reason why you took her away from us.”
Gitau was jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years.
Amidu Koroma
%image('17575374', type="article-full", alt="Amidu Koroma murdered his wife then blamed his son ")Amidu Koroma, a delivery driver from Brixton, planned and executed the murder of his wife, set fire to their home and then tried to blame their teenage son.
The 48-year-old stabbed community nurse Mariam Kamara four times in the face, neck and chest with a kitchen knife as she slept in her bed.
He then used petrol to start a fire to hide what he had done before blaming his 19-year-old son Ishmael, wrongly accusing him of being mentally disturbed and re-enacting a scene from the Netflix thriller You.
But jurors heard the couple’s relationship was “toxic” and Ms Kamara had repeatedly expressed fears to friends that he was going to kill her.
Jurors were also told that the defendant, who had a child with another woman, had feared she would leave him for a man she had struck up an intimate friendship with in Sierra Leone.
Koroma, of Railton Road, was found guilty of Ms Kamara’s murder and arson following a trial at the Old Bailey.
Judge Rebecca Poulet KC jailed him for life with a minimum term of 29 years with a concurrent sentence of seven years for arson.
You can read the full story here - Man jailed for 29 years for murdering wife.
Christopher Baptiste
%image('17575398', type="article-full", alt="Christopher Baptiste, 54, jailed after stabbing flatmate 14 times ")
Christopher Baptiste, 54, murdered his flatmate, 36-year-old Sonny Booty, by stabbing him 14 times at their shared house on Loampit Vale, Lewisham.
Baptiste used a 16in (40cm) carving knife to kill Mr Booty before handing himself in to police saying “I’ve murdered my flatmate”, only to later retract his confession and claim he left Mr Booty “alive and well”.
A court heard that the two men had a “volatile” friendship and had spent that evening drinking and playing pool at the Anchor pub.
Just after 10.30pm an argument broke out and they were asked to leave by the landlady.
Later, neighbours near their home in Loampit Vale heard voices saying “shut your mouth before I kill you” and “stop it”.
Baptiste was found guilty of murder and jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years.
Read the full story here - Lewisham man jailed for murder after stabbing flatmate 14 times.
Taye Francis
%image('17575394', type="article-full", alt="Taye Francis, a convicted rapist, murdered his girlfriend Khloemae Loy")
Taye Francis, 42, stabbed his girlfriend to death at a Holiday Inn in Greenwich.
After murdering 23-year-old Khloemae Loy by stabbing her in the neck with a knife he had bought from Asda then sent a photo of her lying dead on a bed to his lawyer saying “I’ve killed my girlfriend”.
The murder took place in July 2020 and in November 2021 a jury found him guilty of murder - but his conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal and a retrial was ordered.
This month a second jury found Francis guilty of murder and he was re-sentenced to life with a minimum of 23 years.
Francis, formerly known as Ashley Wyatt, had a string of convictions for violence against women.
In 2002 he was jailed for six years and placed on the sex offenders’ register for two rapes, kidnap and having a blade.
The victim in that incident was an ex-girlfriend who was abducted on her lunch break, forced onto a train where she was raped in the toilet, then taken to an address where she was raped again.
Read the full story here - Greenwich Holiday Inn killer found guilty at murder retrial.
Jorge Garay
%image('17575452', type="article-full", alt="Jorge Garay strangled and buried his partner while on holiday in Peru")
Jorge Garay, 46, from Dartford, killed his girlfriend 37-year-old Karla Godoy before wrapping her body in tarpaulin and dumping her in a makeshift grave while they were on holiday in Peru.
The couple travelled to Peru via Spain on September 15, 2022, but Karla’s family did not hear from her after September 23.
The day before she went silent she had confirmed plans to travel to Spain but never arrived. Her family became concerned and contacted police in Spain, Peru and Kent.
On October 4, Garay returned to the UK alone and told his landlord Karla has stayed in Spain when he went to Peru.
Garay then emptied the flat they shared in Dartford and handed his keys back to the landlord.
A few days later her body was found in his family’s garden in Lima, she had been strangled to death.
Garay was found guilty of murder and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years.
Read the full story - Dartford man strangled girlfriend and dumped body in grave.
A 17-year-old
Yusuf Aydin, Benedict Paul, Jack Davies and another attacker who cannot be named because he is under 18, were jailed for killing 21-year-old Eltham man Bartosz Wyrzykowski.
Bartosz, also known as Bartek, was attacked by the four as he was walking to the shop with his girlfriend on February 8 last year.
It was the fourth attacker, who cannot be named because he is under 18, delivered the fatal blow by stabbing Bartek with a machete style knife.
Aydin, Paul and Davies were all found guilty of manslaughter, while the fourth attacker was found guilty of murder.
Bartek's mum described him as a "wonderful boy with a heart of gold".
Aydin, Paul and Davies were jailed for a combined 32 years. The fourth attacker was given life with a minimum term of 17 years.
Read the full story - Names and faces of Bartek Wyrzykowski's killers after Eltham attack.
Ernesto Elliott and Nico Elliott
%image('16499221', type="article-full", alt="Ernesto Elliott and Nico Elliott ")
A father and son from Walthamstow have been jailed for a combined total of 48 years after they robbed and murdered a man in Greenwich.
The court heard the father and son stabbed 35-year-old Nathaniel Eyewu-Ago in the heart after he chased them due to them robbing drugs and cash from him.
Police said that the pair were “were prepared to use any form of violence necessary to protect their stolen property”.
The attack took place during broad daylight and there were a number of witnesses, including an off-duty police officer, PC Luke Dowling, who called 999.
PC Dowling was commended by the judge for his work for making sure the forensic evidence was safe at the scene and for giving first aid Nathaniel.
Nathaniel died in hospital on June 8 as the result of a fatal stab injury to his heart.
Read the full story - Dad and son jailed after fatally stabbing man in heart in Greenwich.
Franklin McLeod
%image('17575578', type="article-full", alt="Marlene Coleman was murdered by Franklin McLeod")Franklin McLeod, of Cressingham Road in SE13, was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 20 years.
This came after McLeod's conviction of murdering his partner, Marlene Coleman, 53.
The jury at the trial heard evidence of McLeod's controlling behaviour towards Marlene, with witnesses describing how she would hang up the phone if he walked into a room.
The court heard how McLeod, 55, and Marlene had been in a relationship for more than ten years and McLeod could be aggressive, possessive and jealous.
Marlene appears to have become unhappy in her relationship and wanted to end it, but she told people how McLeod refused to leave and how he scared her.
She also said told others that he would not contribute financially, and he pressured her to send money to his children in Jamaica.
Marlene eventually met someone else and was planning to restart her life but McLeod found out about the relationship by going through her phone on June 15.
Neighbours later told police that around 9.30pm the same night that they heard a scream coming from the couple’s flat.
CCTV recorded McLeod leaving the flat and at 11.45pm he walked into Lewisham Police Station.
McLeod told the station officer he had argued with his fiancé and put his hand around her throat as she was at the kitchen sink.
He claimed that she had fallen unconscious and he had left her there and gone for a walk. McLeod said he returned 30 minutes later to find her in a pool of blood but did not call ambulance.
Officers were immediately sent to their address in Cressingham Road where Marlene was found not moving or breathing.
A post-mortem examination showed she had died from a single stab wound to her neck and indicated that Marlene had been lying down when the fatal blow was struck.
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