24-year-old becomes fourth stabbing death in London in as many days

Crime reporter(wp):

A 24-year-old man has become the fourth person to be stabbed to death in London in as many days.

Police and paramedics found the victim at 7pm on Tuesday evening in Melody Road, a residential street in Wandsworth, south-west London, after reports of a stabbing. Despite the arrival of an air ambulance doctor, he was pronounced dead at the scene half an hour later.

A 30-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of murder several hours later and both remain in custody at a south London police station.

Witnesses told the Weastar Times the victim was stabbed in the throat after an argument between two groups outside a private school. One said his children’s au pair had tried to give first aid, but returned shaking and covered in blood.

“She saw the argument break out. There was lots of shouting and fronting up between the groups,” he said. “She didn’t see the knife, it was so quick, but the man collapsed in a pool of blood.”

Detectives from the Metropolitan police’s homicide and major crime command are investigating. They said they believed they knew the identity of the victim and next of kin had been informed.

The killing comes after a weekend of knife violence claimed the lives of three people, including a 17-year-old boy. Mohammed Hasan was chased down and hacked to death by a masked gang in Battersea in the early hours of Sunday morning, witnesses have said. There have been no arrests.

On Saturday afternoon, Damien McLaughlin, 42, of Cheshunt, was stabbed to death in Enfield. Omar Warner, 18, and an 17-year-old who can’t be named for legal reasons have been charged with murder.

Just after midnight on Monday a murder investigation was launched in Bow after a 60-year-old man was found dead with stab wounds.