UK: Teenager who killed sisters was 'sacrificing' them to satan for £321 million lottery
A teenager has been convicted of the murder of two sisters in a London park last year whom he stabbed to death after coming through a government “deradicalisation” programme.
Danyal Hussein, 19, murdered Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46. He was said to have drawn up a “contract” in his own blood with a demon to sacrifice women in return for winning the lottery.
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Hussein committed the murders as part of a "diabolical" deal with satan under which he believed he was due to win the lottery in return for building a temple for the devil and sacrifice lives for him. The spells-obsessed satanist had cut himself to use his own blood to sign an agreement with a "demon" named Lucifuge Rofocale, to whom he promised to "perform a minimum of six sacrifices (only women) every six months for as long as he is free and physically capable" in exchange for the £321 million Mega Millions Super Jackpot and future rewards of "wealth and power."
A teenager who drew up an agreement with a “demon” to sacrifice women has been convicted of the murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman.
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) July 6, 2021
📺 Watch to find out how officers used DNA, forensic evidence and CCTV to put Daniel Hussein behind bars.
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While the killings were not treated as a terrorist attack, it can now be reported that investigators consider that Hussein underwent “a form of radicalisation” in terms of exposure to occult material on the so-called dark web.
Investigators also believe he would have gone on to kill more women if he had not injured his hand when he murdered the sisters, an injury Hussein put down to being robbed at knifepoint on a visit for hospital treatment the following day.
After the jury’s guilty verdict, Mrs Justice Whipple adjourned sentencing of Hussein to 22 September at the Old Bailey and ordered reports into his mental health and the impact of his autism. She urged him to co-operate with doctors and also issued instructions for the disclosure of prison inmate reports and records of internet searches carried out by him in prison.
The sisters’ mother, the Rev Mina Smallman, recalled their lives in a moving victim impact statement in which she described the evidence as “overwhelming”, adding that the family had hoped Hussein would “do the right thing, a kindness and find some humanity in him” by pleading guilty in order to spare them.
“No one expects their children to die before them but to have two of your three children murdered overnight is just incomprehensible,” said Smallman, in the statement read out by by Oliver Glasgow QC, counsel for the prosecution.
Smallman, who was the Church of England’s first black female archdeacon, said that losing her two girls was “enough to shake a person’s faith – fortunately it did not”.
Listening to the detail of how her daughters died in court was “horrific” and made her think “this person cannot have a heart”, she said.
She added: “If any good comes out of this at least another four women will not meet a similar end in a so-called pact with a so-called demon.”
To this day, police have been unable to access Hussein’s full browsing history after seizing electronic devices including an iPad in his bedroom. They have complained of obstacles to gaining that access as part of attempts to understand the teenager’s mindset and the full extent of any communications with others.
“I find it incredibly frustrating to run a murder inquiry with your hands tied behind your back in that way,” said DCI Simon Harding, who led the investigation. It is understood that a request for help was relayed to the US Department of Justice but was ultimately turned down.
The teenager, of Blackheath, south-east London, had been in contact online with others about demons and spells, according to investigators.
Some of the spells were believed to have been to do with making him attractive to women, but police remain largely in the dark about other material. There was also some far-right component to some of the discussions, but investigators have been reluctant to go into detail.
Police said Hussein was referred under the counter-terrorism Prevent programme in October 2017 by his school, the Thomas Tallis comprehensive in Blackheath, over concerns that he may have been displaying signs of vulnerability to radicalisation.
He was then referred after further assessment to the Channel programme, a voluntary strand under Prevent, and received what the Metropolitan police described as “appropriate support and interventions”.
In May 2018, he was discharged from the Channel process with no outstanding concerns at that time with respect to violent extremism or terrorism, according to Scotland Yard, and continued to receive support from his school, health and social services.
No further concerns were raised about his behaviour in respect of Prevent, whose officers also carried out a review at six and 12 months after he was discharged from Channel.
“There has not been a huge amount of information about how he became fascinated by demons and the occult because it was all done behind locked doors in his bedroom,” said Harding.
“I suppose it’s another form of radicalisation for him in terms of what he is seeing and what he is being encouraged to look at in the dark web, but we couldn’t get access to his account.”
The motive for the killings was described by Harding as being unlike any other seen by police in the UK. Hussein was a “young man with an ideology” that had led him to commit the murders with a calmness that was frightening.
The teenager, who has autism spectrum disorder, had not been on the radar of mental health services prior to his arrest, according to Harding, who described Hussein’s ideology as one that had a “cult following”.
Hussein, who declined to go into the witness box and testify in his own defence during the trial, has continued to deny any involvement in the murders of the sisters.
Little about Hussein’s family background emerged during the trial, but police have described it as “unremarkable”. He has a number of much younger siblings and had divided his time between his mother’s address in south-east London and his father’s home, close to the park where he committed the murders. He attended school and went through to sixth form.
Smallman and Henry were killed during what prosecutors described as a “frenzied and relentless” attack on a night that was meant to be a celebration of the latter’s birthday.
A combination of forensic and CCTV evidence led police to Hussein, said the prosecutor, Oliver Glasgow QC, and his DNA was found on both sisters’ bodies as well as on a bloodstained knife discovered close to them at Fryent country park.
The trial was shown documents taken from Hussein’s home, including a handwritten “contract” with “the mighty King Lucifuge Rofocale” in which the signatory pledged to kill six women every six months in exchange for winning the Mega Millions Super Jackpot lottery.
“I and my team are convinced that he would have gone on to commit more murders and we would have been looking at anything up to six in the first six months if he fulfilled his contract,” said Harding.
“The injuries to his hand were so significant that he would have struggled to hold anything because he would have been in a lot of pain.”