Teenager jailed for stabbing pensioner to death (From Watford Observer)

Teenager jailed for stabbing pensioner to death

11:56am Thursday 29th June 2006 in

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A millionaire's teenage daughter was jailed for life yesterday after being found guilty of the 'cold-blooded' murder of the 85-year-old Golders Green pensioner Anne Mendel in her own home.

At the Old Bailey yesterday, Judge Richard Hone told the convicted thief Kemi Adeyoola, 18, that she was an 'intelligent, manipulative, remorseless killer', who would serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars.

Adeyoola, of Belsize Square, Belsize Park, stabbed her former next-door neighbour Mrs Mendel 14 times in the back, chest and arm on March 14 last year at the pensioner's home in Elmcroft Crescent. Mrs Mendel's husband of 50 years, Leonard, found his wife covered by coats in the hallway of their home when he returned from a Hendon travel agency.

Judge Hone told the unemployed teenager that she had an 'obsessive interest in money' and said her lifestyle was 'funded by systematic cheating and defrauding high-street shops'.

"I think you actually wanted to experience what it felt like to kill someone in cold blood, possibly so you could write about it, but more probably so that you could boast about it and possibly even do it again," he said.

"You are intelligent, manipulative and skilled in deceit way beyond your years. You have shown not a shred of remorse nor the honesty to admit your guilt, only deceit and contempt for others. I regret to say that I have formed the view that you are a remorseless and cold-blooded killer who is a serious and continuing danger to the public."

He added that a manual she had written on how to murder an elderly person and make £3 million contained 'clear evidence of a generalised intention to commit the motiveless killing of innocent and vulnerable victims for gain'.

The manual was found during a routine search of her cell at Bulwood Hall prison in Essex, while she was serving a six-month sentence for shoplifting. She had denied murdering Mrs Mendel and told detectives the document was the plot for a thriller she intended to write.

But in the manual, Adeyoola wrote: "With your butcher's knife, remove her head. Wrap it in film to contain bleeding, detach each limb one by one, put body pieces in black bag."

Adeyoola, who told the court she had been working as an escort, planned to accumulate semi-automatic weapons, petrol canisters and materials such as gloves and handcuffs to carry out the attack.

The neatly written manual was passed to Barnet Youth Offending Team which supervised Adeyoola for three months after her release from Bulwood Hall. One month later she murdered Mrs Mendel. Police traced the killing to Adeyoola after finding a small sample of her DNA on Mrs Mendel's hand. Adeyoola had disposed of the bloody clothing she had worn at the time of the attack.

Following the verdict, Mrs Mendel's family said in a statement: "Anne was a person whose whole life was taken up with kindness and giving up of herself for others. The unjust end she met, having so much taken away in such an undeserving manner, left us in total shock.

"Although nothing can bring her back to us we sincerely hope that no one else will have to endure such a terrible experience."

Barnet Council this week defended its handling of the teenager, saying it was a 'tragedy' that Adeyoola had chosen a 'path with such violent consequences'.

In a statement, the council said: "A standard case review was undertaken in relation to Kemi Adeyoola. All agencies quickly identified an appropriately high level of concern further to the document being found at Bulwood Hall. A subsequent psychiatric report carried out after the discovery of the document and prior to her release did not indicate any concern that Ms Adeyoola would be pre-disposed in any way to this type of violence."

Adeyoola and a 16-year-old girl were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by trying to fake an alibi, but were cleared of a second similar charge relating to a bogus shopping receipt.

Her estate agent father Bola Adeyoola said he was disowning his daughter and described her actions as 'evil'. While living in Elmcroft Crescent, the court heard she racially abused an Asian family, and hurled excrement at their house.

The 16-year-old girl is due to be sentenced on July 12.

. Additional reporting by MARCUS DYSCH