The boyfriend of one of two sisters, both stabbed to death last year, would not have discovered their bodies if police had searched the London area sooner, a senior investigating officer told the trial of the teenager accused of the murders.
Det Ch Insp Simon Harding led the investigation into the killing of Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, in Fryent Country Park, north London, in 2020. He gave evidence on Wednesday at the trial of the man charged, Danyal Hussein.
Harding said the discovery by Smallman’s boyfriend, Adam Stone, had only happened because the police had not “deployed out”. He told the court: “We wouldn’t be talking about it if the police had found the bodies in the first place.”
Hussein is alleged to have killed the sisters in the belief he had made a blood pact with a demon to win the lottery.
It also emerged during the trial at the Old Bailey, that Hussein, 19, who denies two counts of murder and possessing a knife, has declined to give evidence in his defence. His barrister, Riel Karmy-Jones QC, told the court that she would call no evidence for the defence.
Karmy-Jones had earlier asked Harding about the circumstances in which Stone had found the bodies in bushes after he and others started their own search for the sisters.
The trial previously heard how Stone, who had reported Smallman missing to police and even attempted to track her mobile phone, was on the phone to 999 as he walked into the undergrowth where the bodies lay.
The court has heard how police moved to arrest Hussein, Blackheath, London, after DNA at the scene was linked to a member of his family on the national database.
Within an hour and a half officers had connected Hussein with CCTV allegedly showing him buying knives in an Asda supermarket days before the killing, and with an image of a figure returning to his father’s address near the park within hours of the killings, the jury was told.
Hussein was arrested at his mother’s London home and taken into custody with cuts to his hand, the court heard. A search of his bedroom led to the discovery of a handwritten “agreement” with a demon to sacrifice women in exchange for winning the Mega Millions Super Jackpot, which was signed in his blood, the jurors heard.
The trial was adjourned until 1 July when the prosecutor, Oliver Glasgow QC, will give his closing speech. Mrs Justice Whipple told jurors that she expected to send them out to deliberate on verdicts on Monday.
