Yostin Mosquera, a 35-year-old Colombian national, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 40 years and 264 days at Woolwich Crown Court for the brutal murders of Paul Longworth, 71, and Albert Alfonso, 62. The killings occurred on 11 July 2024 in the victims' flat in Shepherd's Bush, London, where Mosquera had been invited for a second time after an initial visit in 2023. During the trial, the jury heard that Mosquera decapitated and dismembered the bodies before transporting some remains in suitcases to Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, where they were discovered after he abandoned them.
The relationship between Mosquera and Mr Alfonso began online in 2012 via Skype, evolving into a transactional arrangement by 2017, with Mr Alfonso paying Mosquera for increasingly extreme sexual videos from Medellín, Colombia. In 2023, Mr Alfonso funded Mosquera's trip to England, where he stayed at the flat shared with Mr Longworth, Mr Alfonso's former civil partner. The court was told that Mr Alfonso enjoyed extreme sex, which he paid for and shared online, and that Mosquera participated in such sessions during his visits. However, Mr Longworth did not involve himself in these activities.
On the day of the murders, Mosquera killed Mr Longworth first by shattering his skull with 13 blows from a hammer, hiding the body in a divan bed. Later, during a filmed sex session, he stabbed Mr Alfonso to death. Footage presented in court showed Mosquera singing and dancing in the aftermath of the stabbing. He then ordered a chest freezer to store some remains and dragged suitcases containing others to Bristol, an action that puzzled investigators, including Det Ch Insp Ollie Stride from the Metropolitan Police, who noted, 'It's one of the things I've never been able to get to the bottom of.' Det Insp Neil Meade from Avon and Somerset Police added that Mosquera 'exposed himself to being caught' unnecessarily, as he could have returned to Colombia undetected.
Mosquera denied the murders, admitting to killing Mr Alfonso but claiming manslaughter due to loss of control, and blaming Mr Longworth's death on Mr Alfonso. He alleged he was 'raped every day' by Mr Alfonso, feeling 'humiliated, sad and trapped,' but prosecutor Deanna Heer KC pointed out that his defence statement made no mention of rape. A mental health report confirmed Mosquera had no mental health issues at the time, and he was not a victim of coercive control. Judge Justice Bennathan described the murders as 'thoroughly wicked crimes' and the relationship as transactional, noting Mosquera's research into the flat's value post-killings. He stressed the minimum term meant Mosquera 'may never be safe to set free.'
In addition to the life sentence for murder, Mosquera pleaded guilty to three charges of possessing indecent images of children, for which he received 16 months concurrently. The judge stated Mosquera was 'actively involved in a network sharing indecent images of children,' with his laptop containing 'thousands of appalling pictures and films of the gross sexual abuse of very young children.' The case was investigated by the Metropolitan Police and Avon and Somerset Police, with Mosquera arrested shortly after the suitcases were found.