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Summary: 17-year-old Victor Lee of Ealing, a district in west London, England, was fatally stabbed by Elijah Gokool-Mely, also 17 at the time, during a knife sale on June 25, 2023, along London's Grand Union Canal near Wormwood Scrubs Park in England. Gokool-Mely, now 18, pushed Lee into the water and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 20-year minimum in July 2024. Two younger accomplices, aged 14 and 15, were acquitted.
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LONDON (DailyKenn.com) — A London court handed down a life sentence to a teenager convicted of murdering a 17-year-old boy during a botched weapons deal along a quiet canal path, authorities announced last year.
Victor Lee, a shy and entrepreneurial youth from Ealing in west London, met with three teenagers on the afternoon of June 25, 2023, to sell knives he had acquired online, according to trial testimony at the Old Bailey. Earlier that day, Lee had sold the group a crossbow through a Snapchat arrangement, police investigators said. The meeting took place on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal beneath Scrubs Lane, near Wormwood Scrubs Park in a working-class area of the city.
Around 5:30 p.m., Elijah Gokool-Mely, then 17, allegedly turned on Lee without warning, stabbing him twice in the back with rapid force and once in the chest, prosecutors told the court. Gokool-Mely then shoved the wounded teen into the murky waters of the canal to cover his tracks, witnesses reported. No one saw the actual knife strikes, but one passerby observed Gokool-Mely pushing Lee into the water, according to evidence presented.
Two men living on nearby houseboats heard the splash and quickly hauled Lee from the canal, laying him on the bank where he bled profusely from his injuries, emergency responders noted. Paramedics arrived shortly after, but Lee was pronounced dead at the scene by 6:10 p.m., a post-mortem examination later confirming the stab wounds as the cause.
Police arrested Gokool-Mely and two younger accomplices—a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old—days later, following analysis of cellphone data, surveillance footage, and forensic traces, including a knife recovered from Gokool-Mely's home bearing Lee's blood and the suspect's DNA, detectives said. All three faced charges of murder and robbery, with prosecutors arguing the attack stemmed from a plan to steal Lee's bicycle and backpack of blades after realizing they lacked funds for the purchase.
After a five-week trial concluding in June 2024, jurors convicted Gokool-Mely by an 11-1 majority verdict, while acquitting his co-defendants on all counts. In July 2024, Judge Peter Rook sentenced the now-18-year-old Gokool-Mely to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years, describing the assault as a vicious robbery that robbed Lee of his future.
Lee's family portrayed him as an aspirational young man with a knack for fixing and trading bicycles, though vulnerable to exploitation due to his trusting nature and limited ability to gauge dangers, his mother Kristina Lee said in a victim impact statement. She expressed profound grief, calling the loss an unbearable pain that shattered their lives forever. Police emphasized Lee had no gang ties and urged greater scrutiny of online weapon sales to minors, with lead investigator Detective Chief Inspector Brian Howie labeling the incident a sudden and shockingly violent exploitation of a naive teen.
Community members in the Wormwood Scrubs area voiced alarm over rising knife crime among youth, with local councilors calling for enhanced patrols along canal paths and better education on the risks of informal trading. The case highlighted ongoing concerns about accessible weapons in Britain, officials noted, prompting renewed discussions on tightening digital age-verification measures.
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