23 Jun 2015

Edmonton beheading killer not guilty of murder

Nicholas Salvador, who beheaded 82-year-old grandmother Palmira Silva in her back garden in Edmonton, has been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

Salvador (pictured above), 25, was sentenced to a hospital order under section 37 of the mental health act, and a restriction order under section 41, with an indefinite time limit.

He believed he was killing “demons” when he ran amok, tearing down fences and kicking down neighbours’ doors in Edmonton, north London, on the afternoon of 4 September last year, the Old Bailey heard.

At the time, Detective Chief Inspector John Sandlin called it a “highly visible attack in broad daylight”.

Palmira Silva

(Above: Palmira Silva)

Through the back gardens

After the attack on 4 September 2014, Scotland Yard said that officers distracted the suspect to prevent him attacking anyone else. The man was seen going through back gardens in Nightingale Road, forcing police to evacuate people from their homes nearby.

The court heard how Mrs Silva “just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” After the attack the man held up the head of Mrs Silva to show to a police helicopter and also bit a police officer’s leg before he was subdued with repeated shocks from a taser, punches and strikes from a truncheon.

In court, a police officer described his “utter horror” as Salvador came within metres of two children who were playing as he tried to evade police.

Inspector Doug Skinner was first on the scene. He told the court; “We decided we would have to remove residents before Salvador killed someone else.

“The helicopter constantly tracked Salvador jumping fences and they’d also spotted children playing in nearby gardens. We genuinely thought he would kill those children and we were filled with utter terror.

“We pulled up outside of an address close to the victim’s and smashed through the double glazed windows calling out to residents.

“I then saw Salvador, stripped to the waist and standing in someone’s front room, armed with a blood-stained machete. I engaged him in conversation as he made stabbing motions towards me.

“I knew I had to buy enough time for the rest of the team to get residents, especially those kids, out of the area. Officers smashed through windows to pull them all to safety before Salvador could be contained in another house.”

Nicholas Salvador has been at Broadmoor maximum security hospital since the time of the killing. He told psychiatrists that he thought Mrs Silva was Adolf Hitler, his mother or a demon.

Salvador’s defence barrister Bernard Richmond told the court that “after this case has finished he [Salvador] will have to continue coming to terms with the true horror of what he did when he was not well. That will be a life sentence.”