28/06/2006

'Murder manual' teen jailed for 20 years

The teenage daughter of a property millionaire has been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for the murder of her elderly neighbour.

Kemi Adeyoola, from Camden, north London, was 17 when she stabbed 84-year-old Anne Mendel 14 times in her home in Golders Green, north-west London, last March.

Her body was discovered by her husband, Leonard, 81, covered in coats in the hallway of their home.

At sentencing, Judge Richard Hone told Adeyoola: "You are a remorseless and cold-blooded killer who is a danger to the public.

"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 you could boast about it and possibly even do it again."

During the trial, the court was told that Adeyoola had chosen Mrs Mendel as a "soft target" on which to practice her plans before targeting a "rich, elderly, defenceless woman" to murder for her money.

She may have escaped being charged for Mrs Mendel's murder had it not been for a speck of DNA found on the victim's hand.

Adeyoola, now 18, had written an 18-page 'murder manual' while serving a sentence for shop-lifting in Bullwood Hall, Essex. The manual detailed plans to find a wealthy victim, stalk her and finally ambush her, before robbing and killing her, disposing of her body in binliners. Her plan was to make £3 million from the crime.

Adeyoola claimed that the manual was the basis for a crime thriller.

Speaking after she was found guilty of murder, her father Bola Adeyoola said that what she had done was "evil". He said: "She is no longer my daughter. I don't even like her."

A statement issued by Mrs Mendel's family said: "Mrs Mendel 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."

(KMcA/SP)

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