Murder of Hannah Foster

Last updated

Hannah Foster was a 17-year-old British student who was abducted after a night out in Southampton in mid-March 2003. Murdered by Indian immigrant Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, who had come to the UK in 1993, her body was found in nearby West End, Hampshire, two days after she disappeared. [1] A few days later, Kohli fled to his family's home in Chandigarh, India, later assuming a new identity in Darjeeling, but was finally extradited in 2007 (becoming the first Indian citizen to be extradited to the UK). [2] He was found guilty of the crime in 2008, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 24-year non-parole period.

Contents

Background

Hannah Claire Foster (31 August 1985 –14 March 2003) was an A-Level student who had been preparing to study medicine at university. She lived with her parents, Hilary and Trevor, and younger sister, Sarah in Southampton. On 14 March 2003, she went out socialising with a friend in Southampton visiting both The Hobbit and nearby Sobar. [3] At around 10:50 p.m., her friend caught a bus home on Portswood Road, while Foster decided to walk the half-mile (800 metres) to her home alone. A sandwich delivery man, Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, had also been drinking in the area. While driving home in a company van, he noticed Foster alone on the darkened streets, and abducted her as she passed his parked vehicle. [3]

Investigation

Foster's parents noticed that she had not come home at around 5 o'clock the next morning, and by 10:30 a.m. the local police were informed of her disappearance. Initial investigation focused on her prepaid mobile phone, which was still active, and police were able to trace its movements south using signal tower records. [3] In Portsmouth, at a recycling centre, her phone and bag were found dumped in a bottle recycle bin. [3] On 16 March, Foster's body was found dumped in bushes on Allington Lane, West End, just outside Southampton. A post-mortem examination revealed she had been raped and strangled [4] but the semen found on her clothing could not be matched to anyone on the database.

Investigators also traced her phone calls. Unknown to Kohli, while being driven south along the M27, Foster secretly made a 999 call to emergency services around 11:00 p.m. in the hope they would realise she was in trouble. However, as there was no direct communication with the operator, and as the voices were indistinct, the call was treated as a probable misdial and forwarded to Silent Solutions, a 2-minute-long recorded message telling people in need of assistance to dial 55. [3] Investigators then enhanced the recording, and were able to learn that Foster was in the back of a van being driven by a man with a south Asian accent. [3] After identifying seven vans on CCTV footage that might fit the route taken, a public appeal for information was made by the parents on 26 March via Crimewatch. [3]

A supervisor at Hazlewood Foods identified Kohli, one of the company's drivers as a possible suspect. He had taken a van home that night, as he did not own his own vehicle, had a similar delivery route, had a fresh scratch on his face, and was unable to complete his shift the next day. [3] Investigators, noting the same van on their shortlist, soon found blood and semen in the vehicle, and retraced its route in and around Southampton, the M27, Portsmouth, and the recycling centre. Now identified by investigators as the prime suspect, it was soon realised that Kohli had already travelled from Heathrow to Delhi on 18 March ostensibly to visit his comatose mother. [2] Finding his house vacated, they also interviewed his wife and took a DNA sample from one of his two sons. [3] Kohli's wife, a UK citizen, and his brother, a policeman in India, however, denied his involvement in the murder.

Extradition

The case stalled for the next 15 months after Indian police were not able to prioritise the crime and media attention was low. On 10 July 2004, however, Foster's parents went to Chandigarh themselves and made a public appeal for information of his whereabouts. During their 10-day visit, the Fosters held a series of press conferences as well as opening a telephone "hotline". Their visit soon became a subject of high nation-wide interest in the Indian press. [2] Hampshire police, in conjunction with The Sun , announced a reward of ₹ 5 million to anyone whose information led to the arrest of Kohli. [2]

On 15 July, after a number of tip-offs, Kohli was arrested by an off-duty policeman in West Bengal's Darjeeling district (where he had been working under an alias for the Red Cross) while trying to board a bus from Kalimpong to Nepal with his new wife. While in police custody, Kohli stated he was "tired of running". On 28 July, Kohli admitted to raping and murdering Foster in an interview with a private television channel, and said that he was forced to kill Foster after raping her because she refused to not report his crime. In August 2004, he retracted his statement saying it was "not by my own will". [2] Kohli was then held in judicial custody in New Delhi pending extradition to the United Kingdom, and the case underwent 100 court proceedings and 35 appeals. [3] After three years of wrangling, a final decision to extradite him to the UK was handed down on 8 June 2007. [5]

Trial

On 28 July, Kohli arrived at Heathrow and was arrested and charged with the kidnap, rape, and murder of Foster. He was also charged with manslaughter, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice. On 10 December 2007, Kohli entered a plea of not guilty to the charges at Winchester Crown Court. Kohli initially argued he simply found someone had broken into his van and dumped Foster's body there, causing him to panic. [2] He later argued, after DNA evidence was produced, that criminals had forced him to rape and murder Foster. [3]

On 25 November 2008, Kohli, then aged 41, was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommended minimum term of 24 years, less two years for time already served in the UK on remand. [6]

Foster's family expressed their disappointment in the sentence, having hoped the killer would spend the rest of his life in prison. [7] Under the trial judge's recommendation, Kohli is expected to remain in prison until at least 2030 at the age of 63.

Legacy

An important link to the arrest of Kohli was information from taxi driver Jason Lepcha, who was regularly hired by Kohli partly because of his understanding of English. Lepcha, one of 12 reward recipients, received ₹ 367,000 for his role in the arrest. [8] [9] He used this money to buy land to establish a school for disadvantaged children which was named The Hannah Memorial Academy in Foster's memory. [9] [10] When visiting Darjeeling in 2006, Foster's parents heard his story, and on their return to England, worked with others to set up a registered charity which supports Lepcha's school. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

Events in the year 2004 in the Republic of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Sharon Beshenivsky</span> Shooting of a British police officer

PC Sharon Beshenivsky was a West Yorkshire Police constable shot and killed by a criminal gang during a robbery in Bradford on 18 November 2005, becoming the seventh female police officer in Great Britain to be killed on duty. Her colleague, PC Teresa Milburn, was seriously injured in the same incident. Milburn had joined the force less than two years earlier; Beshenivsky had served only nine months as a Constable in the force at the time of her death, having been a Community Support Officer before.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu</span> Canadian murder victim

Jaswinder Kaur "Jassi" Sidhu was an Indo-Canadian beautician who was murdered in an honor killing near the villages of Kaunke and Khosa area of Ludhiana, Punjab, after traveling from British Columbia, Canada. She was kidnapped, tortured, and killed on orders of her mother, Malkiat Kaur Sidhu, and uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha, as punishment for her secret marriage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altemio Sanchez</span> Serial killer and rapist

Altemio C. Sanchez, also known as the Bike Path Rapist, was a Puerto Rican serial killer who is known to have raped and murdered at least three women, and raped at least 9 to 15 girls and women in and around Buffalo, New York, during a 31-year span from 1975, though perhaps earlier, to 2006. He was apprehended in 2007 through DNA evidence and sentenced to 75 years-to-life, serving 16 years before dying from apparent suicide in 2023.

Henry Louis Wallace, also known as the “Taco Bell Strangler”, is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.

<i>Echo Park</i> (novel) 2006 novel

Echo Park is the 17th novel by American crime-writer Michael Connelly, and the twelfth featuring the Los Angeles detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. It was published in 2006.

<i>Sabse Bada Khiladi</i> 1995 film by Umesh Mehra

Sabse Bada Khiladi is a 1995 Indian action thriller film directed by Umesh Mehra and starring Akshay Kumar, Mamta Kulkarni, Mohnish Behl, Gulshan Grover and Sadashiv Amrapurkar. It was the third installment in the Khiladi film series of films that had Akshay in the lead after Khiladi and Main Khiladi Tu Anari and was the first Khiladi film to be directed by Mehra and produced by Keshu Ramsay who went on to collaborate for Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi and International Khiladi and Khiladi 420. The film was a commercial success at the box office and was the sixth highest-grossing Indian film of 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Georges</span> French serial killer (born 1962)

Guy Georges is a French serial killer and serial rapist, dubbed le tueur de l'Est Parisien or The Beast of the Bastille. He was convicted on 5 April 2001, of murdering seven women between 1991 and 1997. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 22 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Teresa De Simone</span> 1979 murder of an English woman

Teresa Elena De Simone was murdered in Southampton, England, in 1979. Her murder led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice in English legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous jury verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen samples that had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Alcala</span> American serial killer (1943–2021)

Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, receiving an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two further homicides committed in New York State in 1971 and 1977. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – authorities believe the actual number is as high as 130.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Vincent Gillis</span> American serial killer, rapist, cannibal, stalker and kidnapper

Sean Vincent Gillis is an American serial killer and sex offender who murdered eight women in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from 1994 until his arrest in April 2004. In his initial arrest, he was charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Gillis confessed to the murders with little coercion and then informed investigators about five other women whom he had murdered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Madison</span> American serial killer and sex offender on death row

Michael Madison is an American convicted serial killer and sex offender from East Cleveland, Ohio who is known to have committed the murders of at least three women over a nine-month period in 2012 and 2013. He was arrested and charged with the crimes in 2013 and was sentenced to death in 2016. Madison is currently being held on death row.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony and Nathaniel Cook</span> American criminal brothers

Anthony Cook and Nathaniel Cook are American serial killer brothers who committed a series of at least 9 rapes and murders of mostly couples in Toledo, Ohio, area between 1973 and 1981. Their guilt was established in the late 1990s thanks to DNA profiling, after which both brothers were convicted and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfredo Prieto</span> Executed Salvadoran-American serial killer

Alfredo Rolando Prieto was a Salvadoran-American serial killer. After being initially convicted for a single murder, he would later be connected to eight other murders committed in Virginia and California between May 1988 and September 1990 via DNA profiling. Sentenced to death in both states, Prieto was executed by lethal injection in Virginia in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Nicole van den Hurk</span> 1995 murder case in North Brabant, Netherlands

15-year-old Nicole van den Hurk disappeared on her way to work on 6 October 1995, in Eindhoven,. Her body was later found in the woods between the towns of Mierlo and Lierop on November 22, 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Halbower</span> American murderer and suspected serial killer

Rodney Lynn Halbower is an American serial killer. He is the prime suspect in the Gypsy Hill killings, a series of murders of young women in San Mateo County, California and Reno, Nevada), whose killer was named The San Mateo Slasher. In March 2014, based on DNA profiling, Halbower was named as a person of interest in the murders. By this time, Cathy Woods, a mental patient who was convicted for one of the victims' murders, had already been exonerated after 35 years behind bars. He has been convicted of three murders and is believed to be linked to two murders related to the Gypsy Hill killings. At the time of his identification, Halbower himself had been imprisoned for 38 years in Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Mary-Ann Leneghan</span> Murder of British teenager in drug- and gang-related circumstances

On the early morning of 7 May 2005, 16-year-old Mary-Ann Leneghan was stabbed to death in Prospect Park in Reading, Berkshire, UK. The previous evening, Leneghan and a friend had been kidnapped and subjected to hours of assault, rape, and drugging in a local hotel. Her friend was shot in the head, but survived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John William Kelley</span> American serial killer and rapist

John William Kelley is an American serial killer and rapist. Following his 2012 arrest for the 1986 rape-murder of a hitchhiker in Ben Lomond, California, Kelley additionally confessed to murdering a couple two years later in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, near Crescent City. For all of his crimes, he received three life imprisonment terms, which he is currently serving at the California Correctional Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathaniel Burkett</span> American serial killer

Nathaniel Burkett was an American serial killer. He murdered four women in close proximity to his apartment in Las Vegas, Nevada. He had also killed his own mother by intentionally setting her on fire in his native city of Picayune, Mississippi. Burkett was arrested for three of the murders following a cold case examination in 2012, and later convicted in 2018. He died of COVID-19 in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jose Guerrero (serial killer)</span> American serial killer

Jose Guerrero is an American serial killer and kidnapper who raped and murdered at least three women in Madera, California, from 1995 to 1998. The murders remained unsolved for nearly six years until DNA implicated Guerrero, who was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in 2009.

References

  1. ↑ Caroline Gammell (25 November 1972). "Hannah Foster's killer: Maninder Pal Singh Kohli". The Daily Telegraph . London.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Real Stories (2009), Hannah's Killer: Nowhere To Hide , retrieved 13 July 2019
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Case 117: Hannah Foster". Casefile: True Crime Podcast. 12 July 2019. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  4. ↑ "Man found guilty of Hannah Murder". BBC. 25 November 2008. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  5. ↑ "Hannah suspect arrives back in UK". BBC News. 28 July 2007.
  6. ↑ "Life for Hannah Foster's murderer Maninder Pal Singh Kohli". Southern Daily Echo. 25 November 2008.
  7. ↑ Makin, Jenny (26 November 2008). "Kohli should spend rest of life behind bars". Southern Daily Echo . Southampton . Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  8. ↑ "Jason's story – Hannah Memorial Academy" . Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  9. 1 2 "School named after Hannah in Darjeeling" The Times of India 30 September 2007
  10. ↑ "A wonderful tribute in India to Hannah Foster" Southern Daily Echo 27 November 2008

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.