The attack on Emmanuel Odunlami began before he knew he was being watched.
On the night of May 1, 2022, the 32-year-old music manager was celebrating his birthday with friends at a private event at Haz Restaurant on Foster Lane in the City of London. Unknown to him, a member of the event’s security team was recording him on a mobile phone because of the luxury-looking watch on his wrist.
That recording would become one of the crucial pieces of evidence in a murder investigation that eventually led to four men being imprisoned.
The case has resurfaced online through CCTV footage shared by crime-focused social-media accounts, including the Instagram post supplied for this report. The original social-media account described Odunlami as being killed for a watch believed to be worth as much as £300,000.
Court and police records establish a more complicated picture: the watch looked like a Patek Philippe Nautilus that could have been worth about £125,000 if genuine, but investigators later established that it was actually a fake.
The target was identified inside the restaurant
Odunlami was not simply followed at random.
According to City of London Police, security guard Kavindu Hettiarachchi secretly filmed him and subsequently sent images to Louis Vandrose, drawing attention to the watch. Police said this effectively marked Odunlami as the target of a planned robbery.
The circumstances made the security guard’s role particularly striking.
Hettiarachchi had been employed to help protect people attending the event. Instead, investigators concluded that he used his position to identify a potential victim and pass information about him to people who intended to rob him.
Court proceedings later established that Hettiarachchi was convicted of manslaughter and robbery and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
The victim himself had little reason to suspect what was happening.
Odunlami was a self-employed businessman and music manager with a fiancée and two young children. He had gone to the event to celebrate his birthday with friends.
As the event ended, the plan moved outside.
Police said that at about 11:20 p.m., Odunlami and a friend left the venue. A Mercedes associated with the attackers drove past before being parked nearby.
The three men inside — Vandrose, Jordell Menzies and Quincy Ffrench — then moved towards Odunlami.
CCTV showed the group chasing him into Gresham Street. Menzies was carrying a knife. Police said he twice attempted to trip Odunlami before stabbing him in the heart with a lock knife.
The attack was captured from multiple angles.
According to evidence later published by the police, the footage showed Hettiarachchi observing the attack before walking towards where Odunlami had fallen. Rather than assisting him, he turned away and returned towards the vehicle. His colleague Antonios Kfoury did the same.
Odunlami’s friends tried to help.
Police officers arrived shortly afterwards and provided first aid before he was taken to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. He was pronounced dead at 12:08 a.m. on May 2, 2022.
The watch was not worth what the attackers believed
The central irony of the case emerged during the criminal proceedings.
The stolen watch had the appearance of a Patek Philippe Nautilus with diamond detailing. Had it been genuine, police said it could have been worth about £125,000.
But it was not genuine.
The watch was ultimately identified as a fake and was never recovered. That distinction matters because the attackers’ apparent motive was based on the value they believed the watch represented.
At Menzies’ retrial, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC described the case as the killing of Odunlami for a watch that there was good reason to believe was not genuine.
The case therefore was not simply a robbery that unexpectedly turned violent. Evidence presented in court showed that the victim had first been identified because of an object the attackers believed was extremely valuable, and the violence began as they moved to take it.
The investigation did not depend solely on CCTV.
The lock knife used in the killing was discovered the following morning in London Wall after a member of the public found it. Police said it had been thrown from the suspects’ vehicle.
Forensic examination found traces of Odunlami’s blood and fatty tissue on the knife, while Menzies’ DNA was found on its handle.
Investigators also traced the vehicle used in the attack.
After identifying its genuine registration, police arrested Ffrench the following day. Menzies was arrested on May 16, 2022, while Vandrose was arrested at Lisbon Airport on July 10.
The investigation eventually extended beyond the three men who physically attacked Odunlami.
Another security worker was convicted of covering up the crime
Antonios Kfoury, a colleague of Hettiarachchi, was separately prosecuted for attempting to obstruct the investigation.
Police said Kfoury gave investigators a false account of the number of security staff working at the event. He said there were four when there were actually five, deliberately leaving Hettiarachchi out of his account.
Police also said Kfoury attempted to influence evidence provided by another security worker.
He was convicted of perverting the course of justice on April 18, 2023 and received an 18-month custodial sentence.
The detail illustrates how the investigation expanded from the street attack into the events inside the restaurant and the subsequent attempts to conceal the involvement of people connected to the event.
The legal case did not end with a single verdict.
Menzies was eventually convicted of murder and robbery at the Old Bailey in December 2023. His three associates had already been convicted of manslaughter and robbery in an earlier trial.
On February 12, 2024, the sentences were imposed.
Menzies, who was 27 at the time of sentencing, received life imprisonment with a minimum term of 31 years for murder. He also received eight years for robbery, to run concurrently.
Ffrench, 28, received 15 years for manslaughter and robbery.
Vandrose, also 28, received 15 years for manslaughter and robbery.
Hettiarachchi, 31, received 13 years for manslaughter and robbery.
The different convictions reflect the individual findings made by the courts rather than a single legal conclusion about all four men’s roles.
A birthday became a murder investigation
For Odunlami’s family, the legal outcome came after a prolonged investigation into a killing that began with an apparently ordinary celebration.
His fiancée, Rajbir Kaur, said he was a loving father to their two young children and described the killing as senseless. She also said the family continued to struggle with his death.
The case has since acquired a second life online, where CCTV footage is being circulated as a crime story.
But the official record provides a fuller explanation of what those images represent.
They show not only the final moments of an attack but the chain of events that preceded it: a security worker identifying a potential target, information being passed to others, a group waiting outside, a chase through the streets of the City of London, a fatal stabbing and an attempt to escape.
And at the centre of it was a watch whose perceived value helped make Odunlami a target — but which, according to the evidence presented to the court, was ultimately fake.
The watch was never recovered.
Odunlami never returned home.
