25 year guilt - killer Paul Marshall haunted by ghost of victim Nasir Turabee
Stabbing ‘has ruined my life like I ruined the lives of the dead man’s family’
Published: 20 May, 2010
by DAVID ST GEORGE
A KILLER confessed after 25 years “to get some peace of mind”, a court has heard.
Paul Marshall, 47, walked into Holmes Road police station in Kentish Town and admitted to a shocked detective that he had fatally stabbed a popular shopkeeper during an £80 robbery in September 1985.
Marshall said: “I didn’t mean to stab him. It’s been on my conscience ever since.
“I can’t live with the guilt. It has ruined my life like I ruined the lives of the dead man’s family.”
The Old Bailey heard Marshall was a jobless drifter at the time, living in a squat in Royal College Street, Camden Town, when he raided a shop in Archway Road, Highgate, on a Saturday night in September 1985, leaving the proprietor dying.
He admitted charges of manslaughter and robbery. His denial of a murder count was accepted by the prosecution.
The victim, Nasir Turabee, 42, ran Highgate Dairy and taught economics at local secondary schools.
Mr Turabee – his wife was a nurse – died from two stab wounds to the heart, inflicted with a flick knife.
He leapt to protect his son, then aged 14, who had been grabbed by hooded Marshall as they were shutting for the night.
The case was “shelved for good” when detectives could find no clues to the killer.
Marshall told police he was after cash for drink and drugs at the time but had reformed his lifestyle while living in the US and since returning to London in 2002.
Moira McGowan, QC, defending, said he had always been “enormously troubled” by what he had done and was relieved when he was eventually able to tell police that he was responsible.
The “unintended consequences” of having a knife with him on the raid had been on his conscience ever since and the court heard he had been “haunted” by the ghost of the victim.
Judge Richard Hawkins QC sentenced Marshall to six years and deducted 367 days he has already served on remand.
The judge told the gaunt six-footer, who was close to tears in the dock: “Without your confession you could never have been charged with these offences.”
The prosecution accepted that when he lunged with the knife he did not intend serious harm. Judge Hawkins added: “You were 23 then and you are now in your late 40s. It is clear you have shown genuine remorse by coming forward and confessing.”