A man has been convicted of murdering his sister-in-law with a hatchet at the home they shared in Ilford.
Nicolae Virtosu, 48, was convicted of murdering Svetlana Mihalachi, 53, following a trial at the Old Bailey on Friday, July 21.
Virtosu, who was also found guilty of making threats to kill, will be sentenced on October 9.
Ms Mihalachi was killed by Virtosu in April 2021 after tensions escalated over lockdown, jurors at the Old Bailey were told.
Police rushed to a property in Princes Road on Friday, April 9 following reports that a woman had been assaulted.
Ms Mihalachi was found at the scene with serious head injuries caused by blows to the head with a hatchet.
Virtosu, from Moldova, was an illegal immigrant and had been living with his brother, Iurie, and Mihalachi since 2018, the court heard. He is alleged to have subjected Mihalachi to a campaign of intimidation and threats in the months before she died.
In 2009 Virtosu was convicted of the “unlawful killing” of his wife Anastasia, whom he strangled.
Catherine Pattison, prosecuting, told the jury Mihalachi and the family knew about Virtosu’s conviction and she lived in “genuine fear” that her brother-in-law would kill her.
Ms Mihalachi had contacted the Home Office Immigration Service in the hope they would deport him and then called police to report Mr Virtosu one month before her death, the court heard.
Ms Mihalachi told a practice manager at Reach Out domestic violence hub that she did not understand why the Home Office and the police did not help her, the jury was told. "Do they want someone to be killed before they do anything?" she was said to have asked.
The court heard that there was "no dispute or issue", that Virtosu killed his sister-in-law and that he did so by striking her repeatedly with a hatchet.
Ms Pattison said this was a "clear case of murder".
During lockdown, the prosecutor said, "cracks started to appear" in the relationship between Virtosu and Ms Mihalachi.
When asked to move out, the defendant refused, allegedly telling his brother: "I do what I want, no woman commands me. She’s at fault, not me."
A post-mortem examination found the cause of death to have been multi organ failure resulting from head injuries and loss of blood.
Throughout the trial Virtosu claimed to have been ‘hearing voices’ and suffering a psychotic disorder. He claimed that Svetlana had appeared to him as having devil-like shining red eyes to support a defence of diminished responsibility, but he did not convince the jury.
Detective Rosamund Ellis said: “Svetlana Mihalachi had been forced to live with a background of threats of violence that ultimately ended in a ferocious and fatal attack.
“Virtosu tried hard to give the impression that he wasn’t responsible for his actions due to a mental health disorder, but his actions were not the result of delusions, they were the actions of an angry violent man who launched a murderous attack on Svetlana as he had threatened to do on so many occasions.
“She was a wife and a mother and the depth of loss felt by her loved ones is immeasurable. My thoughts are with them today.”
