Michael Afonso-Peixoto, who died after what the police described as a “brutal” attack in Thornton Heath just before Christmas last year, had driven to Mayfield Crescent to carry out a drugs deal and was murdered by a gang of men who had staked out the meeting with the intention of stealing his “stash of cocaine”.
Murdered: Michael Afonso-Peixoto
The circumstances behind what was the 11th murder on Croydon’s streets in 2023 emerged during the Old Bailey trial of three members of the gang, who were convicted of a range of charges.
The prosecution evidence found traces of two of the men’s DNA on cigarette stubs they left at the scene, linking them to Afonso’s killing.
Afonso, 27, died after being ambushed and stabbed by a group of men in Mayfield Crescent at around 10.30pm on Tuesday, December 19 last year. The suspects drove off in Afonso’s grey Vauxhall Grand X Elite.
Zak Baako, 29, from Croydon, was found guilty of murder.
John Budal, who was in his teens at the time of the attack, now 20, from Ena Road, Pollards Hill, was found guilty of manslaughter.
Bako and Budal were also convicted of robbery.
Omari Peat, 23, of Southampton Gardens, Mitcham, was cleared of murder and manslaughter, but found guilty of robbery.
The three men had been with two others, sitting in a BMW waiting for their victim to arrive for the drugs deal. They were waiting for half an hour smoking cigarettes, throwing the stubs out of the car windows, the prosecution said.
Crispin Aylett KC said: “In fact, the five men were not interested in buying drugs from Michael Afonso-Peixoto. Instead they wanted to rob him of his stash of cocaine.”
CCTV pictures showed one of the men armed with a large knife, and there was an encounter between him and the victim, the prosecution said.
“Between the time of that first confrontation with the man with the knife and the time that Michael Afonso-Peixoto collapsed on to the driveway of a house further down the road, in all he was stabbed five times,” Aylett told the court.
Afonso was fatally injured by a knife wound to his heart and bled to death at the scene, the court heard. His friend was forced out of her car, which was driven away by two of the attackers.
“Those thoughtlessly discarded cigarette butts were to prove their undoing – each of them had left traces of his DNA on one or more of the cigarettes,” Aylett said.
“Each were interviewed by police and when confronted with the DNA evidence other than to deny having been involved in the murder, none of them had anything to say for themselves.”
None of the defendants gave evidence in their defence.
The prosecution did not know if the five men ever found Afonso’s drugs, but they had robbed his friend of her car and her mobile phone at knife-point, the court heard.
Sentencing has been adjourned until January 13.
Read more: Murdered man’s family in debt after £11,000 GoFundMe scam
Read more: Croydon in 2023: London’s borough with most murder victims
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
