Couple killed in suitcase murders were ‘each other's everything'

Yahoo

2 days ago

The murdered couple whose dismembered remains were dumped in a suitcase near Clifton Suspension Bridge had been devoted to each other, police said.
Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, had lived together for 20 years and became civil partners in February 2023.
According to the senior investigating officer in the case, they were each other's 'everything'.
'They were best friends,' Detective Chief Inspector Ollie Stride, of the Metropolitan Police, said.
'They didn't have huge amounts of family and friends around them, and they were each other's rocks, each other's everything.'
Their friend, Paul Greenwood, who had known the couple from when they all worked at an estate of residential apartments, recalled Mr Alfonso being 'quite a chatty and a welcoming person' who paid close attention to detail.
He was always 'engaging with the residents' and tried to build a community atmosphere through summer and Christmas parties.
Mr Greenwood, who was the general manager at the residential property, said Mr Longworth, who worked as a handyman, was 'genuinely a jovial man who liked to stop and talk with the residents'.
The couple had known each other since they had been in foster care and they were well liked by the neighbours of their west London home, who said they appeared fond of each other.
Behind closed doors, Mr Alfonso had a preference for extreme sex which led him to cross paths with Yostin Andres Mosquera, 35, a Colombian whom he paid for graphic videos and intimate contact.
Jurors at Woolwich Crown Court, where Mosquera was tried for murdering the couple in a 'calculated' and 'premeditated' act with an intent to steal money from them, heard there is no evidence to suggest Mr Longworth was part of the sexual arrangement.
In Mr Longworth, Mr Alfonso had found a friend for life and someone who accepted his sexual preferences and he had 'no reason' to kill him, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC said.
Mosquera denied murdering the couple and blamed Mr Longworth for Mr Alfonso's death. He admitted killing Mr Alfonso but claimed it was manslaughter by reason of loss of control.
The couple were killed on July 8 last year at the flat they shared in Shepherd's Bush, west London, before some of their remains were dumped near Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.
They trusted Mosquera who was invited to stay at their home and Mr Alfonso was paying for his English lessons at a school.
Mr Alfonso suffered injuries to his torso, face and neck, while Mr Longworth was attacked with a hammer to the back of his head up to 13 times.
Their decapitated heads were later found by police in a chest freezer in their flat.
In a statement, Mr Greenwood told the court that Mr Longworth was 'not very forthcoming about his private life'.
He added: 'Paul never mentioned any issues with Albert, such as domestic issues or problems. He did not hint at any problems with Albert.
'They seemed to have an easy relationship.
'I would say they had a symbiotic relationship.'
Mr Alfonso was working as a swimming instructor and Mr Longworth had retired as a handyman just four months before they were killed.
Mr Greenwood said Mr Longworth 'was not seedy' and he did not seem interested in a new partner.
Giving evidence during the trial, Mosquera said he had first met Mr Alfonso through webcam sex websites in 2012, and was eventually paid for degrading sex acts he did not want to perform.
He claimed they had continued contact online and later met in person in Colombia in 2022 and 2024.
Soon after his retirement, Mr Longworth sent Whatsapp messages from a trip to Colombia to Mr Greenwood.
It included a photograph of him, Mr Alfonso and Mosquera on a boat ride.
Mr Greenwood asked who the man in the photograph was and was told: 'It was someone that we met. (Mr Longworth) looked down and shrugged.
'It indicated he did not want to talk about it. This is how he always batted down questions about his private life.
'In my mind I thought it must have been Albert meeting a gay man.
'I did not think any more than that and Paul did not say more than that.'
In the days before the killings, Mosquera said he had gone online to look up property values 'out of curiosity' but there were also repeated computer searches to find a freezer.
Computer searches for the phrase 'where on the head is a knock fatal?' were also made on the day the couple were killed.
The jury heard that Mosquera's actions were were financially motivated.
During closing speeches, Ms Heer said: 'While Albert Alfonso was in it for the sex, Mosquera was in it for the money.
'Not only did Albert Alfonso lay himself open to the defendant in the bedroom, he laid his whole life open to a man whose life was transactional.
'The prosecution case is that Yostin Mosquera took advantage of the situation. He killed both Paul Longworth and Albert Alfonso having planned to do so, intending to do so in order to steal from them.'
Defence counsel Tom Little KC said Mr Alfonso had been capable of grooming and blackmail.
Jurors heard from a man, named only as James Smith, who said he regularly engaged in paid acts of sexual domination with Mr Alfonso and some of the encounters were posted online.
He was told that if he did 'favours', the video would never be shared.
Mr Smith said he had known the couple for about 18 years and he 'considered them to be close friends'.
He also described Mr Alfonso's and Mr Longworth's relationship as 'mint'.
He added that Mr Alfonso could be 'nice, very caring and very respectful' and 'he adored Paul and Paul was everything to him'.
Ms Heer later added that although Mr Alfonso's sex life with Mr Smith may be 'troubling – he (Alfonso) was not a killer'.