An evil murderer and serial stranger rapist dubbed the “E17 night stalker” has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 37 years.
Aman Vyas, 35, was sentenced on Thursday, August 20 for six counts of rape of four women, grievous bodily harm and the 2009 murder of 35-year-old Michelle Samaraweera, who he strangled and left in a children’s playground, after a trial at Croydon Crown Court.
Prosecutor Tom Little QC called Vyas “the E17 night stalker” as he told jurors the attacker turned a small area near his home in Walthamstow into his “hunting ground” for a “series of violent rapes” between March and May 2009.
He fled the UK two days after a Crimewatch appeal featuring an e-fit picture, and was arrested in India in 2011 after his former boss gave police a water bottle Vyas’s brother had drunk from, which showed partial DNA linked to the crimes was a male sibling.
Detectives said Vyas last year became only the third person, and the second Indian national, to be extradited from India to the UK, following an eight-year court battle involving around 30 hearings.
Vyas, who has two children aged nine and five, was arrested and charged when he landed at Heathrow Airport in October 2019.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/east-london-news/first-picture-serial-stranger-rapist-18800471