Murder #18, Csaba Siklodi, Sydenham
Murder #18, Csaba Siklodi, Sydenham
Romanian Csaba Siklodi, 42, was battered and stabbed to death at a bungalow in Sydenham, south London, in the early hours of February 9, 2011. Police were called the house in Mayow Road at 2.10am following reports of a disturbance. Mr Siklodi had suffered 18 stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Gheorghe Mihai Teodorescu,46, and Marcea Corbu, 51, both of no fixed address, were charged with his murder. They went on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court on November 21, 2011.The prosecution claimed the victim was beaten with a crowbar and stabbed repeatedly by his housemates after an argument about what music to play during a drinking session in the bedroom. Corbu and Teodorescu were convicted of murder and jailed for life. Teodorescu will serve a minimum of 20 years before parole and Corbu a minimum of 18 years before parole.
I remember getting up early hoping to use the morning light but instead being met by cold dreary rain. When I got to Mayow Road the forensic team was still working inside the house and outside a lone officer sat in her car looking bored out of her mind. She stepped out to ask me for some ID and then let me get on with my photograph. I knew nothing about what had happened except that someone had been murdered. Normally someone would come up to me offering me some clue as to what had occurred but on this miserable wet day everyone seemed in a rush to get to work and out of the rain. The only clue to I could derive was the Liverpool FC flag in the window. I imagined that someone from Liverpool had been involved. The forensic officers came in and out in their white boiler suits like ghosts. I kept wondering what kind of scene was inside. I took very few photographs and generally I wasn’t happy with the photographs. It was one of those days that I doubted the journey I was on.
It was the 5th murder site I had photographed that an immigrant or foreign national had been murdered since the beginning of the year. Romania, Poland, Sri Lanka, Russia and Ireland were the countries the victims had come from. Csaba Siklodi ended up in a squat and spent his last night on earth drinking, arguing and dying violently. I am sure he had bigger dreams than that.
An interactive map of the places I have written about so far
The Landscape of Murder Photos
The caption information comes from the MurderMap Website and the MPS Press Bureau
The Landscape of Murder 