A “barbaric” killer has been jailed for life for fatally stabbing a teenager in the neck as he sat in a car in south London.
Jeremiah Sewell, 19, was ambushed by Godfrey Tanishe Madondo as he listened to music with friends in the back of a car in Beckenham Place Park, Lewisham, in the early hours of July 16 last year.
A witness heard someone ask Jeremiah where he was from. As he answered he was knifed twice in the neck.
Central Criminal Court heard that Madondo, 20, quickly fled the scene in a speeding getaway car.
Jeremiah’s friends rushed him to nearby Lewisham Hospital but, despite the efforts of medical staff he died a short time later.
CCTV analysis provided detectives with movements of the car that Madondo had been travelling in; prior to the murder the occupants were seen entering a shop in Peckham and Madondo could be made out in footage.
Madondo was arrested the day after the murder, but refused to answer any questions about the attack of Jeremiah.
DCI Chris Wood, from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, led the investigation and said: “Jeremiah’s murder was an utterly senseless and barbaric act – the speed in which the situation escalated, and the fact that Jeremiah was sitting defenceless in the back of a car, offering no threat to Madondo, makes it all the more futile.
“From the outset Madondo has not made any attempt to explain why he attacked Jeremiah, let alone accept responsibility for his actions. They have left Jeremiah’s family wondering why their loved one was viciously attacked – when he could have provided answers; he has taken the coward’s option and kept quiet.
“Nothing will undo the catastrophic consequences of that night, but I hope the conviction of these three people will at least give Jeremiah’s family and friends some sense that justice has been served.”
Even though he fled the scene, detectives acted swiftly to track down and secure evidence against Godfrey Tanishe Madondo, 20, of Colegrove Road, Southwark, who was found guilty at the Central Criminal Court on Monday, 3 July, of the murder of 19-year-old Jeremiah Sewell.
He was sentenced on Friday, 7 July to life imprisonment – to serve a minimum of 24 years.
