Two abattoir workers who tortured and mutilated victims ike butchered pigs are facing life behind bars after being found guilty of murder.
Ionut-Valentin Boboc, 22, and 46-year-old Jacob-Bebe Chers were both convicted of the double murder of Denzil McKenzie and Fahad Hossain Pramanik.
The bodies were then partially dismembered and laid up in a macabre display, the court heard.
But as their bodies lay undiscovered in a “house of horrors”, the prosecution argued both defendants then went on to disposing evidence and trying to cover up their tracks.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court today found both men guilty following a three-week trial, which prosecutors told Boboc had visited 56-year-old Mr McKenzie’s home in the city on the night of the murders.
The killer, a Romanian national, had regularly borrowed money from his victim, sometimes in return for sexual favours, and the prosecution say he tricked his way in on the night of the killings.
The second victim Mr Pramanik, 27, was alleged to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the jury heard.
Mr Pramanik had been stabbed three times, including the gash to his stomach.
Some foaming substance had been forced into his nose, and he had multiple slash and scratch marks all over his body. A bite mark matching Chers’ teeth was found on his arm.
While inside, prosecutor Kevin Dent KC said the defendants ‘jointly’ inflicted multiple stab wounds.
Mr McKenzie was found to have 23 knife wounds – the most serious of these to his neck – while Mr Pramanik was stabbed at least three times in the back and abdomen.
There was evidence both also been tortured, Mr Dent told the jury.
‘They left behind them a scene of horror,’ Mr Dent told the court.
‘The dead and mutilated bodies of Denzil McKenzie and Fahad Pramanik were left in the sitting room.’
Mr. Dent said the victims had been stabbed repeatedly while defending themselves from the attack, with both bodies “further mutilated” after their deaths.”
The bodies had been arranged in a macabre display. One body was on the sofa and the other on the floor with the foot of one of the bodies within the gaping abdominal wound of the other.
‘They inflicted further injuries on Mr Pramanik after his death. He had been dismembered in a gruesome echo of the butchering the defendants carried out in the abattoir on pigs.
‘CCTV later caught the duo attempting to dump evidence of their crimes, with one clip showing Chers driving his black Alfa Romeo car onto a grassy verge, before emptying it of items and putting them in a nearby bin.
In another clip, Boboc was also seen taking ‘items’ from a car and depositing them in a bin.
A recording of a 999 call made by Boboc’s aunt Maria was also played to the court, after her nephew came home drunk and “bloodstained” saying he had killed something. She later told detectives she thought his confession had been a joke.
During the trial, the jury was also shown CCTV footage of Boboc and Chers walking towards the address at 8.30pm on the night of the killings, and then coming back the same way at around 11pm.
Mr Dent added: ‘We don’t know what brought him (Mr Pramanik) to visit and it appears a terrible coincidence that he was at Mr McKenzie’s house on the day these two defendants arrived.
‘Mr Pramanik really was in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is nothing to suggest he knew either of the defendants before he met them.
Footage of them leaving after the murders, showed them carrying large items including audio equipment and amplifiers among other valuables such as jewellery they had stolen while inside.
Messages recovered by the police showed Boboc had repeatedly borrowed money from Mr McKenzie – sometimes in return for sexual favours – and on the night in question had invited himself over.
Mr Dent added: ‘He said ‘I want to come to you to say goodbye and have a drink. We stay ten minutes and after I leave I want to say goodbye to you – and I want to give you something.’
We say he tricked his way into Mr McKenzie’s house through these messages.
Boboc, of Hillfields, Bristol, had admitted the murder of Mr McKenzie but denied killing Mr Pramanik, while Chers, also of Hillfields, had denied both murders.
Both men were remanded into custody and will be sentenced on December 21.
