A man will be sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey tomorrow after pleading guilty to murdering his estranged wife and attempting to kill his current partner.
However Desmond Brooks, 42, will start serving his sentence not in prison but at Broadmoor maximum security hospital as since the attacks he had been diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic.
In a short hearing today Brooks also pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on a third woman on the same day in July 2013.
The wave of violence started with Brooks stabbing his current partner Joan Wade, who was then 46, in her home in Brixton.
She was left in a critical condition but survived.
Barely half an hour later also in Brixton he killed his estranged wife Keisha McKenzie and stabbed her sister Saffron Yeboah-Simpson, then aged 17.
Ms Yeboah-Simpson, who is now over 18, was stabbed in her head and hands but also survived.
At the time Ms McKenzie’s neighbour Hawa Musse, 20, said: “I heard a boy crying and shouting for help and I thought he had fallen down the stairs.
“A neighbour shouted me over and I went and saw the woman’s 17-year-old sister on the floor.
"There was blood streaming from one side of her head. There was a lot of blood.”
Brooks, of Brixton, was arrested a few hours later on a bus near the scene.
In today’s hearing Elizabeth Marsh QC, defending, said that Brooks had surrendered to the police when he was asked to give himself up.
“His mental health deteriorated in the following weeks and he attempted to hang himself,” she told the court.
In early October 2013 he was transferred from prison to Broadmoor. His mental health has improved with medication. He has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid-schizophrenia.
“He is unable to express any recollection of the events but there can be no challenge to the overwhelming evidence in the prosecution’s case.”
Brooks pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.
His plea of not guilty to the attempted murder of Ms Yeboah-Simpson was accepted by the Crown.
He will be sentenced tomorrow by Judge Stephen Kramer after prosecutor Simon Russell-Flint QC has given greater detail about the case.
