In December 2022 Sheldon Rodrigues killed his housemate Stephanie Hansen in West London.
Rodrigues (30) had been obsessed with Hansen (39) for about seven years to the point where he had installed listening devices through the house in order to spy on her.
Messages revealed that his obsession with Hansen dated back to 2015.
On more than one occasion Rodrigues had made his feelings known with Hansen rejecting his advances.
In messages exchanged between the pair from 2021, Rodrigues told Hansen “It hurts to see you every day knowing you’ll never like me,” to which she had responded: “I do like you but just not enough.
At this point he offered to undergo plastic surgery to alter his appearance in efforts to make himself more attractive.
It was in 2021 that the pair moved into a house together in order to split bills.
According to messages presented in court there may have been some sexual contact between them which Hansen said was “a mistake” and reiterated that she wished to just be friends.
A jury heard that Rodrigues installed spying equipment into a television in order to monitor Hansen and that he had listened to 158 hours of recordings captured on the device.
In late 2022 Hansen was in a relationship with a colleague of hers which a court heard “angered” Rodrigues.
He paid a man £100 to follow Hansen’s boyfriend around in a car, and ten days before her murder he had made internet searches on ‘how to make a woman fall in love with you,’
After returning home from a night-shift at his job at a cargo company near Heathrow Airport, Rodrigues heard recordings of Hansen with her boyfriend.
He entered her room and proceeded to inflict 60 injuries to her body including knife wounds to her neck, and blunt force injuries caused by a hairdryer and a large fan.
After the murder he left her body where it was for 24 hours before he called the police while pretending he had just found it.
He also made attempts to pin her death on her boyfriend.
Rodrigues was convicted of Hansen’s murder and will be sentenced on the 8th of March next with Judge Judy Khan KC remanding him in custody.