Killer who murdered flatmate jailed for life

Eugeniu Neamtu, 59, known as Jimmy, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years for the fatal stabbing of his flatmate Gheorghe Trica, 63, in Walthamstow, east London, on 20 February. Appearing at the Old Bailey on Friday, Judge Richard Marks KC imposed the sentence after hearing that the attack bore “strikingly similar” hallmarks to an earlier killing in Neamtu’s native Romania. In May 2007 Neamtu was convicted there of murdering a housemate by stabbing him repeatedly in the chest during a drunken enactment over money, receiving a 15‑year prison term. The court heard that the February 2024 incident replicated the same pattern of violence, linking the two offences across nearly two decades.