Nurse Donna Drepaul burned to death by her jealous lover
Aiah Tondoneh is jailed for ‘horror movie’ attack
Published: 12th May, 2011
by DAVID ST GEORGE
A MAN who turned his lover into a human torch has been warned he has no hope of release until at least 2033.
Aiah Tondoneh ambushed “treasured” University College Hospital London (UCLH) staff nurse Donna Drepaul as she arrived home, drenched her from head to toe in petrol and watched her burn in agony.
The Old Bailey heard the heartbreaking account on Monday when Tondoneh, 44, who worked as a carer at a psychiatric unit attached to the Whittington Hospital in Dartmouth Park, confessed to murder as Ms Drepaul’s family listened.
Mr Justice Nicol described the attack as “the stuff of a horror movie”.
Ms Drepaul, 49, was attacked at her home in Clifton Court, Biggerstaff Street, Finsbury Park, at 4am by drunken Tondoneh, a married man from Claire Court, Shoot Up Hill, West Hampstead, who had been waiting for her to return, having walked to a local petrol station and purchased a five-litre can of fuel.
As Ms Drepaul went up in flames at her 17th-floor home she became so disfigured that when she hammered on the doors of neighbours who knew her well they did not recognise her and were too terrified to let her in.
Tondoneh left the block by a rear exit, caught a bus and went home to his wife.
The attack took place after Ms Drepaul had realised she wanted him out of her life, the court heard.
Ms Drepaul had recently begun a relationship with a new partner. They had spent hours together at the Majestic hotel, in Seven Sisters Road, before she returned to Clifton Court at around 4am. Tondoneh’s 48 phone calls to her remained unanswered and he became increasingly wound up as he waited in the dark ready to kill her.
Prosecutor Phillip Bennetts QC said that first on the scene was an experienced police officer who almost panicked at the sight of the victim groaning: “Help me.”
All those involved, he added, “continue to be haunted” by what they saw.
Tondoneh, originally from Sierra Leone, was named by Ms Drepaul as her killer as she lay dying at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Tondoneh, who worked as a nurse at the Highgate Mental Health Unit where he was highly regarded, maintained that he had “no real memory” of setting fire to her. But CCTV of him purchasing petrol and returning to Ms Drepaul’s flat – he had a key – proved the killing was premeditated, said Mr Bennetts.
The pair had been lovers for four years. Ms Drepaul’s family said she was a hard-working “great lady” who was a charity fundraiser and supported her elderly mother abroad, as well as being an “angel” as a senior staff nurse at UCLH where she had cared for patients for many years.