Teenage Girl Stabbed 60 Times’ By Ex-boyfriend

A teenage girl was stabbed to death in a “sustained” attack in a block of flats by her jealous ex-boyfriend, an inquest has heard.

Arsema Dawit, 15, was stabbed almost 60 times by Thomas Nugusse at Waterloo in central London in June 2008.

In a garbled phone call to emergency services, Nugusse, who was 21 at the time, said he had attacked her after finding out she had been cheating on him.

During the call, which was read to a jury at Southwark Coroner’s Court by coroner Dr Andrew Harris, Nugusse said: “She was lying to me and she said she loved me and she is cheating me.”

He added: “I choose I prefer to kill my girlfriend and then kill myself.

“I love you and I can’t be without you.”

Arsema’s body was found covered in blood by neighbours in a lift in the flats in Matheson Lang Gardens at around 3.45pm on June 2 2008.

A knife was also found in the lift.

The inquest heard she had been stabbed almost 60 times, with more than 50 wounds to her neck and others to her back and chest.

Nugusse later confessed to Arsema’s murder, but could not be tried because he suffered brain damage in a suicide attempt in prison.

In 2009, an Old Bailey jury was not permitted to return conventional innocent or guilty verdicts and instead found that Nugusse had “committed the acts”.

During the 999 call, Nugusse, who was from Eritrea and had no family with him in England, said he had been going out with Arsema for around two years.

The university student said he helped her with her school work and that her family treated him well, saying “her mum is like my mum … treating us sure good”.

But he said he had found out Arsema had been seeing another man behind his back instead of going to church, as she told him she had been doing, and that it had been going on for three months.

He said he tried to talk with her, but was warned off by three men who he said threatened to kill him if he kept seeing her.

He said: “They were telling me, ‘If you go out with this girl again then we will kill you’.”

Nugusse told the operator he decided that he preferred to kill Arsema and himself.

The inquest is expected to last four weeks.