Triple nominated at the True Crime Awards and nominated Best British True-Crime Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, also hailed as 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Channel's Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FIVE: On Monday 8th of August 1994, in an undisclosed flat on the second or third floor of York Mansions, a murder was committed which was so brutal, so frenzied, that not a single surface was left unsullied by blood. The scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, yet the case remained unsolved for 30 years. The Police had a likely suspect and his DNA, but why did they wait so long to convict him?
THE LOCATION:
The location is marked with a purple 'P' below the words 'Baker Street' under Regent's Park. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other maps, click here.
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: Why did the Police wait 30 years to solve the murder of Marina Koppel? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Chiltern Street in Marylebone, W1; one street east of the Blackout Ripper’s pub, two streets north of the lobotomy which led to a good mother to kill her child, two streets south of the slaying of William Raven for a pair of clean underpants, the same street as the last sighting of Rene Hanrahan, and a few doors down from the cross-eyed assassin - coming soon to Murder Mile. Running parallel with Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes, sits Chiltern Street; two lines of five and six storey Victorian mansion blocks made of red bricks, with black wrought iron railings and white windowsills. The flats are posh, pricey and sought after being so central, but they are incredibly tiny. Every time I walk passed, I imagine a 6 foot banker called Tarquin bent double like a pretzel simply to get into his kitchen, with one arm poking out a microscopic window, his leg stretching into the hallway and his arse blocking his 2 inch telly, all so he can spread his humus without doing himself a mischief. Yet as desirable as these flats are, they also have a horrific history when it comes to malice and murder. On Monday 8th of August 1994, in an undisclosed flat on the second or third floor of York Mansions, a murder was committed which was so brutal, so frenzied, that not a single surface was left unsullied by blood. The scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, yet the case remained unsolved for 30 years. The Police had a likely suspect and his DNA, but why did they wait so long to convict him? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 305: Time, Data and Death. To tell her story, we need to travel more than 5000 miles to the South American country of Columbia. Born in 1955, she was later known as Marina Koppel, but her real name was Luz Marina Gomez. Little is known about her upbringing, her parents, or her siblings, but whereas her homeland of Columbia should have become one of the wealthiest being the world’s largest producer of emeralds and Arabica beans, but with the 1950s seeing an escalation in corruption, political infighting and armed conflict, it was here that the rich got richer and more powerful, and yet, the poor only got poorer and weaker. By the 1960s, unemployment was raging and economic growth had stalled, so with criminal gangs and drug cartels (like Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel) paying off officials and running rampant as they controlled the country, Columbia descended into a cesspool of crime, being synonymous with cocaine smuggling, human trafficking, kidnapping, prostitution, slavery, extortion and executions. And although it has since blossomed, Columbia is still recovering from the aftermath of that era today. It was during the 1970s that Marina got married, she built a home with her husband, and increasing her extended family who she adored, she had two children of her own. For Marina, it was the dream. But how hard must her life have been? As in 1979, aged just 24, being small (five feet tall) and slim (barely 100lbs), alone, she left her life, her husband, her friends, even her own children, and flew half way across the world in the hope of making a better life for them by sending some money home. When she arrived, compared to Columbia, Britain’s issues were like a petty spat in a playgroup. Described as our ‘winter of discontent’, that year saw riots and looting, and with the binmen on strike, the streets were strewn with rancid litter which swathed every town and city in an overpowering pong. As for London, this new world was wet and cold. Lacking fresh fruit, all food dripped in grease, and with so few Spanish speakers, so thick were the local’s accents, she couldn’t tell if anyone was English. It was a hard transition, but her personality did most of the heavy lifting. As a woman who was liked and loved by those who knew her, or even those she was only a casual acquaintance of, it’s impossible to wade through all of the platitudes. Everyone said she was "extremely bright, highly intelligent and charismatic", she had an "abundance of energy for life", and “saw good in her family and all people she met”. She was friendly, vivacious, kind, and she went out of her way to care and help other people. In 1982, having met and fell in love with David Andrew Koppel, an antiques dealer from Northampton, although he was 15 years her senior and the two weren’t at that point in their relationship, as Marina had been threatened with deportation, they bigamously married, just to keep her in the country. She was now a legitimate British citizen living under the name of Luz Marina Gomez De Koppel… …but this wasn’t her only name, as she had at least 13 aliases. When she went into the Midland Bank on Baker Street, her cash card was in her original married name of M L Gomez, and the locals knew her as Maria, Sandra and Roseta. But as a high-class sex-worker who lived and worked in this affluent neighbourhood, she sold her services under the names of Angara and Angarita - Spanish names which made her seem more exotic to her middle-class English clients. Unlike many of the seedy stories of the West End sex trade we’ve covered before, Marina wasn’t an addict, she wasn’t coerced, and she wasn’t living in fear of being extorted by a violent gang or a pimp. She was an independent professional woman, who since 1987, had sold sex, but did everything safely. For seven years, she had advertised herself as a ‘Columbian masseuse’ in the classified ad’s of local papers, listings magazines and newsagent’s windows. She had an address book of her regular clients (usually businessmen), she worked from home and as far as we know she didn’t have a criminal record. She earned a good living, she worked five days a week and was discrete about what she did. She wore the latest fashions and was neat and presentable; her black hair with stylish blonde highlights never had a strand out of place, and to sum-up how successful her business was, in 1992, she carried the latest gadget – an NEC P3 mobile phone; it was the size of a brick, but only the most affluent had one. She did it all so that – one day – she could return to Columbia to her family, with her head held high, she could see how her years of sacrifice had paid off to give them the life they deserved. Her son, Javier called her “the best mother in the world”, and he hoped she would come home for good… …but it would never happen. On Monday 1st of August 1994, one week before, Marina had moved into a small flat in York Mansions at 84 Chiltern Street in Marylebone. As a well-presented mansion block with a concierge service, it was the kind of place a well-heeled gentleman could enter without turning heads. Being secure, its communal door could only be accessed by each flat’s intercom. And being surrounded by a courtyard of small flats, anyone who entered Marina’s yellow front door could easily be seen by her neighbours. Her flat had a small sitting-room with a sofa and a coffee table, a tiny kitchen with all the mod cons, and a bedroom with a double bed. But then, this wasn’t her home, it was her workplace, as selling sex Monday to Friday, Marina spent her weekends with her husband in Northampton. It was an “unconventional relationship”, and although David "did not necessarily approve… he accepted it". Monday 8th of August 1994 was no different to any other day for Marina Koppel. The night before, she had met a regular client at a hotel by Heathrow airport. That evening, dressed in stylish black leggings, a crisp white jacket, high heels and a black shoulder bag, Marina entered a poker tournament at the Victoria Sporting Club casino on nearby George Street, and although she gambled a little, this was really a business opportunity to meet affluent men who had money to burn. At 4am, she left, but her next movements weren’t unpredictable. At 9:30am, on her landing, she met her new neighbour, an elderly lady called Mrs Miller for the first time; they chatted, Mrs Miller said “she was very bright and pleasant… she offered to do my shopping as she had a car… and said she was tired and was going to bed”. Late morning, as a frequent customer, she ate her regular breakfast of eggs, bacon and tomato at Blandford’s café, a few door from her flat at 65 Chiltern Street, and said to be her usual pleasant and chatty self, she sat alone enjoying her meal. Between 1:38pm to 1:42pm, CCTV captured Marina entering the Midland Bank at 90 Baker Street. She was alone, she was in a good mood, she made a small regular transaction, and she wasn’t coerced. Those were the last confirmed sightings of Marina. It’s possible she visited her local newsagents called Sherlock Holmes News – said to be on Baker Street or Chiltern Street – and having purchased milk, bread and maybe updated her cards in the window, being handed a cream coloured carrier bag of her goods from the owner’s son, she headed back to her flat, and closed the front door for the last time. At 2:45pm, she called her son, Javier in Columbia, being 8:45am his time. She was happy but tired, she had no plans for the day and didn’t sound upset or distressed. When she hung up at 3pm, that was the last time he heard her voice and no-one had any idea (including Marina) that her life was in danger. Sometime after 3pm, her husband, David called her mobile phone, but she didn’t pick up. They spoke often and she always called back, but as she didn’t, he called at 5pm, getting no reply. Growing concerned as this was unlike her, he called at 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, and by 10pm, becoming more worried for her safety - given her success, stature and her occupation - he drove the 59 miles south from Northampton to Marylebone and arrived at Chiltern Street at roughly 11pm. With no key and no reply via her intercom, the concierge let the Police in to do a welfare check at just before 11:30pm. The investigation was led by Detective Superintendent Peter Slade and Detective Inspector John Ryan. With no cameras on the street, the door, or in the communal hallway, Police had no idea who had entered York Mansions that day, but with no signs of forced entry, it was clear her killer was let in. Neighbours saw no-one and heard nothing, except a scream which could have come from anywhere. Likewise, her windows were locked and her front door hadn’t been forced, and with her clients only attending by a pre-arranged appointment made to her mobile phone in - which she always vetted them and only allowed them entry to the mansion block and her flat, if and when she trusted them. Being a typical summer’s day, seeing daytime highs of 28 degrees and evening lows of 16, with her heating not on, she had been dead for 7 to 9 hours, making her time of death between 3pm and 5pm. It happened soon after her return as the carrier bag hadn’t been unpacked and was still in the kitchen. From her front door to the main stairwell, a trail of blood had been dripped as her killer fled at speed. The blood was hers, and with him said to have been saturated in it, it was obvious where he had ran; as the sitting room was untouched, the kitchen had been used in the moments prior, the bathroom was where he had failed to clean-up (as with the day being sunny, a bloodied man would have stood out as he ran in this busy part of town), but her bedroom was a scene of utter horror and devastation. The room was barely 10 foot square, with a double bed, a side table, a chair, a dresser and a wardrobe. In the moments before her violent assault, it was clear that consensual sex between a fee-paying client and his chosen prostitute was in the process of taking place; she had removed her clothes and placed them neatly on a chair, a void existed where he too had undressed, and she was wearing black lacy lingerie and expensive stockings, the kind she often wore when she was expecting one of her clients. But something had happened, something violent and brutal. Dr Ian West, the pathologist who attended the scene described the attack as “frenzied“. In court, the jury were shown the crime-scene photos, and many gasped as the whole room was drenched in blood. On the floor, wrapped in the saturated sheets from her bed, lay what was determined to be the body of Marina Koppel. It was a savage and sustained attack, which took at least two minutes maybe longer. With six-inch kitchen knife, possibly from her own kitchen, her assailant had unleashed a brutal assault without any hint of remorse, only hatred. With blood in her mouth and oesophagus, she had pleaded and screamed to no avail, and as she writhed in pain and tried to flee, he had slashed at her arms and hands as she tried to defend herself, then he repeatedly stabbed her in her chest, back, neck and face. In total, she had been stabbed and slashed more than 140 times. According to the pathologist, the wounds to her neck were more than sufficient to kill her, but stated “it was clear (he) continued to inflict blows on Ms Koppel, even after her heart had stopped beating”. The Judge stated “the terror and pain inflicted on Ms Koppel is difficult to imagine. She was attacked with a knife in her own home, when she was at her most vulnerable”. And yet, the more frenzied his stabbing became and the more bloodied his hand got, even as his grip slipped from the handle or he had to swap over owing to the exhaustion of his actions, he didn’t stop until she was unrecognisable. This was was the unequivocal hatred of a small and well-liked woman. But why? The sex (which had been interrupted) was said to have been transactional, but not part of the attack. Her diary was missing, but it seemed unlikely that someone would deliberately attack her to steal that. Likewise, her NEC P3 mobile phone was missing, but costing the equivalent of £1600 today, it wasn’t worth killing her for, and with so few around, it would be close to impossible to sell it. In fact, the only other item stolen was a rainbow coloured titanium bangle bought in America and said to be worthless. The crime scene was a rabbit’s warren of evidence, and yet, he had fled the scene heavily bloodied, but no-one had seen him. A bloodstained blue tablecloth measuring 30 x 30 inches was found under a car on nearby Bickenhall Mansions, but Police couldn’t determine if it was connected to the murder. And somewhere, her killer had disposed of the weapon, a six-inch singled-sided kitchen knife, with it impossible to tell if it came from her kitchen, or if he had brought it with him intent of killing her. This man had brutally murdered a defenceless woman, yet in a crazed moment of panic when anyone else would have fled without looking back, he stole her Switch credit card, and somehow having got her PIN number, over the next two days, on three occasions, he withdrew a small amount of cash from ATM machines in and around the area of St John’s Wood and South Hampstead, just one mile north. The detectives quickly ruled out her husband as he was in Northampton during the murder, and he was distraught at losing her. A maniac with a hatred of prostitutes was mooted, but no-names proved likely. And given that she had “a client list of men in powerful and influential positions”, it made sense that he would steal her mobile phone, as her killer would have been one of the last men to call her. The Police had no suspect, but oddly, they had enough evidence to convict someone, but who? Initially, they thought he had left his fingerprints on the cream-coloured carrier bag, but it turned out they belonged to be owner’s son who had served Marina at Sherlock Holmes News a few hours before. Having headed to the kitchen, possibly to get the knife to attack her, her killer had left two bloody footmarks of his Size 7 feet by the skirting board of the bedroom, but they weren’t clear enough to print. And on her ring, as she had fought back, the gem setting had caught one of his black head hairs. The Police were years, if not decades away from being able to accurately profile his DNA, so with no fingerprints, a fuzzy footprint, and a hair from which all they could tell was his blood group and hair colour, as they didn’t have a single witness to her murder, and no obvious suspect, the case stalled. Such a small room had harvested a wealth of damning evidence, and yet it led the Police to no-one. On the 13th of September 1994, five weeks after her murder, Marina was cremated and her remains were flown back to Columbia to be with her loved ones. Ruled as wilful murder, the Coroner declared the case as open. And although her family fought to keep the investigation alive, the anguish of never knowing who had murdered his wife led to her husband, David’s mental and physical decline, and with his family stating “he lost the will to live”, on the 24th of April 2005, he died never knowing the truth. For a decade, her killer remained a free man, walking the same streets, and no-one could convict him. So why did the Police wait 30 years to solve her murder? It wasn’t laziness or a miscarriage of justice, as sometimes evidence isn’t enough, as even though the killer has left a piece of himself (literally) in her hand, owing to the limitations of that era, to bring a killer to justice, it can take time and data. In 1987, seven years before Marina’s murder, Colin Pitchfork became the first person in Britain to be convicted of rape and murder using his own DNA. It was a new tool for detectives, and it changed the way that evidence was preserved, as even if it couldn’t solve a crime today, perhaps it could tomorrow. In 1995, the year after her murder, the National DNA Database was established to store DNA profiles of crime scenes or felons arrested for recordable offenses to help solve crimes by matching profiles. In 1995, it had just a few thousand, by 2005 it had 3.1 million, and today it holds close to 6 million. In 2008, a cold-case review subjected the evidence to DNA testing as the technology and accuracy had come on leaps and bounds in the last decade. The bloody footmarks were the same size as one of the Police’s likely suspects, but as he wasn’t on the database, they had no legal reason to acquire his DNA and they couldn’t prove it was him, even though his fingerprints was found at the crime scene. Again, the case went cold, but it wasn’t dead… …it was just waiting until the technology caught up, or her killer to make a fatal mistake. 2022, 28 years after Marina’s murder, a second cold case review was launched, the bagged evidence was taken out of storage, and in laboratory conditions, being subjected to more advanced testing, it matched a profile on the National DNA Database to the man the Police had suspected for decades. In court, the Prosecutor, Mr William Emlyn Jones KC stated "you may have little trouble concluding that if those footprints were made in Marina's wet blood, then that can only be because they were left by her killer - someone who was in that room, barefoot, at the time. All these years later, they have been identified - they are the defendant's prints - they were made by the sole of his left foot." In January 2023, Police arrested him at his home on Finchley Road in St John’s Wood, and although he denied he was responsible, his DNA and fingerprints were a perfect match, as well as his footprints. His downfall began a decade earlier when on 14th of September 2013, he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, and as a first offence, he was given a 12-month community order and a restraining order. And as required being arrested for a recordable offense, his DNA profile was added to the database. On the day of the murder, he was nothing more than a client, a lonely man seeking sex. Whether he was a regular customer, or if he had seen her advert for a ‘Columbian masseuse’ in the classified ad’s or in the newsagent’s window is unknown, but that day, he called her number, he made a last-minute appointment and being known to her, she let him in via the intercom and her front door. In the bedroom, they undressed as part of this casual transaction, but the sex never took place. At his trial, Mr Justice Cavanagh stated “there is nothing to suggest that you went to the flat with the intention of murdering her: you went to avail yourself of her sexual services… I have a strong suspicion that you killed Ms Koppel because of the shame and embarrassment at your sexual performance”. As being just 21-year-old student with limited experience of sex, it was his failure, and he blamed her. Having assaulted her, naked and barefoot, he ran into her kitchen, grabbed a knife, and in his blistering rage, he unleashed a terrifying attack on Marina, during which – as she flailed in fear – the gem setting of her ring caught a tiny hair from his head, and later, a Forensics Officer bagged it and catalogued it. He took her bracelet for no logical reason, except (maybe) it was a present from him? He stole her phone as he was the last man to call her before her death. He disposed of the knife, possibly throwing it into the Regent’s Canal as he headed home to St John’s Wood? He wasn’t noticed by any of the locals, as he was a local himself. And he stole her bank card because being remorseless, he got greedy. With Marina being a high-class sex-worker, Police initially suspected that her killer was a wealthy client but the truth was far from it. Born on the 26th of August 1972 in London, Sandip Patel was then a 21-year-old student, who was working in his father’s shop, a newsagents called Sherlock Holmes News. That afternoon, when Marina brought bread and milk, and he handed those goods to her in a cream-coloured plastic carrier-bag, as the Police expected to find at the crime scene, he left his fingerprints on it, but until his arrest, they had no way to prove that he was her client, and also her killer (End). On the 31st of January 2024 in Court 1 of the Old Bailey, 51-year-old Sandip Patel pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge of murder. Defended by Mathew Sherratt KC, Patel gave no evidence in his defence, and was said to have “shown no remorse whatsoever”. Prosecutor William Jones KC stated "It has taken a long time to solve it, but we have evidence that she had the 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 can only be because it was him who killed her all those years ago". Stabbed 140 times in a “brutal, vicious and merciless attack… it was likely triggered by his sexual insecurity”. Having deliberated for just three hours and 10 minutes, the jury found him guilty of wilful murder. Sentenced on Thursday the 15th of February 2024, Patel refused to leave the cell to hear his fate, and refused to listen in via video link, which Mr Justice Cavanagh described as “an act of moral cowardice”. Summing up, the Judge stated “the terror and pain that you inflicted on Mrs Koppel is difficult to imagine. You deprived [her] of many more years of life. No sentence that I pass can compensate her family for their loss". Patel was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 19 years before parole is considered, and having already spent 343 days on remand, the earliest he can be released is 2042. Marina’s son Javier stated "It is not easy for me to relive the saddest moment of my life after 29 years. I am convinced that my mum had a lot of life to live still, it was not her time and this is very painful - it tears my very soul. I hope to be able to close this chapter and to remember my mother how she was - the best mother in the world". Patel appealed his sentence in March 2025, but this was rejected. Finally a killer was caught, but even with the best evidence, it still took time and data. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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