On a killer’s trail: how Papazian was caught

The self proclaimed ‘genius’ made one mistake too many, writes Paul Kelly.

AN OPEN window at the top-floor flat of retired teacher Gerard Hendra was the first sign that something was wrong.

Friends and neighbours had not seen the 65-year-old all week, though a woman who lived below said she had heard noises in the small hours of Saturday, June 4, last year.

They knew Mr Hendra would not leave his window open for that long so they called the police, who broke in through a back window.

“Officers found him lying in his living room on the floor and a bean bag had been placed over his face.

“He was plainly dead,” said Detective Chief Inspector Mick Broster of London’s Metropolitan Police.

Over the following months a team of 20 police officers, headed by Mr Broster, would probe the London suburb of Hampstead — and Cork — in an attempt to find the killer.

Central to the hunt were two things at first: Mr Hendra’s own diary and the record of calls to and from his telephone.

Mr Broster said: “Gerard was an active diarist and on June 3 he had written: ‘Mark coming round, bringing wine’ or words to that effect.

“When we examined the diary further we saw Mark had met him on Hampstead Heath and had been round previously but we had no idea who Mark was (because there was no surname).

“All we knew was that there was someone called Mark who may be a suspect or a potential witness.

“We knew Gerard had been to the off-licence about 5.45pm on June 3 but he had not been seen since.

“We did forensics in the house and we found a blood-stained fingerprint but it did not come back to anyone on our database.”

The vital breakthrough came when police analysed the victim’s phone records and traced a mobile phone number to someone in Hampstead called Mark.

It was Mark Papazian, the Cork-born nurse who would eventually plead guilty to Mr Hendra’s murder.

“Then it was a matter of finding Papazian,” said Mr Broster.

“But, of course, the only evidence we had against him at that stage was that his mobile phone had phoned the victim.

“We tried to get evidence against him but on the day we went to arrest him it is fair to say we had got evidence but not an awful lot to charge him with.

“That would all change later with the blood-stained fingerprint.”

Later, the print would match Papazian, placing him at the scene at the time of the death or afterwards.

Officers had discovered him in the e20-a-night Aviva Hotel in Finchley Road, a mile away from Mr Hendra’s flat.

During the search of his address they also found a blood-stained bag and a knife buried in the grounds.

To avoid detection, Papazian had washed the clothes he wore when he murdered Mr Hendra and also shaved off his long hair and his moustache.

But Mr Broster said: “He did not cause any trouble for us.

“He immediately said he knew the victim but had not seen him for a while.

“Officers then started a search of his room and found his diary.”

Then something incredible happened.

“We were reading the relevant dates and it says how he killed the victim.

“It was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it in 25 years.”

There, in Papazian’s handwriting, was an account of how he met Mr Hendra, killed him and cleaned his flat to destroy evidence.

Despite overwhelming evidence in his own handwriting in the diary, Papazian stayed silent during police interviews.

Without Papazian’s help (apart from the diary) officers had to make sure they had a watertight case against Papazian and fit his own written admissions with all the other evidence.

They knew that two fingerprints in blood were Papazian’s, placing him at the scene on or after the killing.

From his diary they discovered how he plotted to start killing men he met on Hampstead Heath — and had started with Mr Hendra.

But they were alarmed to read how he planned to kill someone called Jeremy, too.

Without a surname, the police faced an uphill task but set about tracking every man on the heath called Jeremy.

Of all the Jeremys they spoke to, none admitted to knowing Papazian but police are today confident he is safe and well.

From Papazian’s diary they were also aware that he had a fascination with Mr Hendra’s vast collection of classical compact discs.

But where had all these CDs gone?

Eventually they tracked down an innocent acquaintance of Papazian’s to south London.

Mr Broster said: “Papazian had left a suitcase with this man for safekeeping.

“It was full of CDs from the victim’s flat and there were pages of A4 paper where Papazian had scrawled his thoughts about the CDs.

“He was a very strange man.”

In the grounds of the Aviva Hotel, police found what they believe was the knife used by Papazian to cut Mr Hendra’s throat.

They also established that Papazian had revisited the scene of his crime three or four times to clean up any evidence.

Papazian’s boast in his diary about “thinking of everything” rang hollow when police found a fingerprint on a doorframe and a bloody one on a cord for the bathroom light.

Both matched Papazian and in July last year he was charged with the murder of retired English teacher Gerard Hendra.

On January 27, Papazian was due to stand trial for murder at the Old Bailey — Britain’s Central Criminal Court — but changed his plea to guilty.

Last month, following psychiatric reports, Papazian was sentenced to life without parole for 24 years.

Mr Broster said on the day Papazian was sentenced: “This was a premeditated and senseless attack on an elderly gentleman.

“While Mr Hendra lived alone and had no immediate family, he had a number of very close friends.

“He will be much missed by those friends and in the community where he did voluntary work counselling for the gay community and founded a group called ‘London Friends’.”

The detective then turned his attention to Papazian’s diary — the journal that had become the talk of the Old Bailey that day.

“Papazian clearly thought he had covered his tracks and wrote in his diary that he ‘had thought of everything’ to do with the forensic examination of Mr Hendra’s flat.

“He even wrote, ‘I am a genius,’ implying that he had indeed thought of everything.

“However, following a detailed and thorough investigation sufficient evidence was found that led to Papazian entering a guilty plea and being sentenced.

“I would like to thank the community for their assistance in this enquiry and my team for their dedication which led to the swift arrest of Papazian before he could kill again.”

London’s Metropolitan Police’s specialist crime directorate — a crack force within one of the world’s busiest forces — had another conviction under its belt.

Papazian’s sentence — a severe one by British standards today — means he will be 73 before Britain’s prison service even thinks of letting him out.

Friends of Mr Hendra’s, are adamant that Papazian should spend the rest of his life in jail.