A man has been charged with the murders of four members of the same family at their home in southeast London.
Joshua Jacques, 28, will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday charged with the murders of Dolet Hill, 64, Denton Burke, 58, Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45, and Samantha Drummonds, 27.
It comes after police were called to reports of a disturbance at a terraced house in Delaford Road, Bermondsey, at 1.40am on Monday.
Armed officers broke down the door and found the family stabbed to death inside.
Mr Jacques, of Minard Road, Lewisham, was charged by homicide detectives on Thursday morning.
Retired NHS worker Ms Hill lived with her long-term partner Mr Burke at the three-bedroom house in Delaford Road.
It emerged Ms Drummonds, the youngest family member killed, had only returned to the home days before the killings because renovation work was being done at her flat in Forest Hill, Lewisham, while her mother Ms Ofori-Akuffo was staying there to take care of her own mother, who was being treated for cancer.
Ms Ofori-Akuffo’s husband Danny said he had been left “totally destroyed” by the death of his wife of nearly two decades.
He described Ms Ofori-Akuffo as “such a lovely woman” and said he didn’t know how he was going to live without her.
More details have also emerged about the other family members, including the only man to have been killed.
Denton Burke is said to have been a trained chef who moved to the UK from Jamaica 25 years ago.
According to his sister Juleth Hutchinson, he and Ms Hill had worked at the same hospital and had been together for 16 or 17 years.
She described him as “always smiling, making jokes and cooking” and said Ms Hill was a “lovely, bubbly, kind lady” who was “so genuine”.
Ms Drummonds had been just days away from her 28th birthday when she was killed at her grandmother’s home.
