A paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed a grandmother to death at a north London bus stop has been detained indefinitely.
Jala Debella, 24, attacked medical secretary Anita Mukhey, 66, in front of horrified members of the public at about on May 9 2024.
He stabbed her 18 times at 11.50am before “casually” walking away while bystanders rushed to help the victim.
Debella was sentenced to a hospital order and a restriction order at a hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday. He can be detained indefinitely.
The court heard that the 24-year-old was obsessed with gory online videos that mirrored the violence he would later carry out in real life.
He had searched on his computer for “killing video” and visited a website containing graphic violent content.
Despite living in a residential home supporting people with mental health problems, Debella was able to buy a hunting knife over the internet.
It was delivered to the home in Colindale, in the north London borough of Barnet, around an hour before he used it to kill Ms Mukhey.
Ms Mukhey’s husband, Hari, said the grandmother-of-two was the “centre of our home”.
He said that her absence has left a silence that” nothing can fill” and thanked “brave members of the public” who went to his wife’s aide.
Mr Mukhey said the trial had forced him to confront “deeply troubling” facts about the psychological assessments of her killer, however.
Judge Philip Katz KC said: “Anita Mukhey was the heart of the family. She was a wife, mother and grandmother, aged 66 when she was stabbed to death by a complete stranger on a busy main road in north London.”
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Debella did not appear in court to hear the verdict. He had previously been judged too unwell to stand trial for murder.
In a statement – issued after the jury found Debella committed the act of killing Ms Mukhey – her family said: “The court has heard that a man with a severe mental illness was known to services and assessed by consultant psychiatrists as psychologically stable and safe for the community.
“At the same time, he was engaging in escalating behaviour outside those assessments, including acquiring weapons and researching extreme violence – behaviour that ultimately mirrored the violence he later carried out.
“That disconnect is hard to accept. It raises serious questions about how risk is assessed, and about whether current models are equipped to detect danger that develops beyond the spoken words of the consulting room.”
Speaking outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Alex Gammampila said the verdict would offer “little comfort” to Ms Mukhey’s family.
He added: “I want to recognise the dignity and courage they have shown over the past 20 months.”
