An Australian teenager who raped and murdered his neighbour was ‘studying how to become a serial killer,’ and had planned his crime for months in advance as part of his ‘education’, a Sydney court heard today.
Daniel Stani-Reginald, now 21, attacked Tosha Thakkar, 24, in her next-door flat, stuffed her dead body into a suitcase and dumped it in a canal before he went home to read an article called Beginnings of a Serial Killer.
In the weeks leading up to the 2011 murder, Stani-Reginald had visited 9,500 online articles and websites dedicated to serial killers and rapists.
Stani-Reginald has pleaded guilty to raping and strangling the accountancy student, and is due to be sentenced by Sydney Supreme Court.
Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC today urged a judge
Horror: Tosha Thakkar, 24, was murdered by neighbour 'studying to become a serial killer'
to impose a life sentence on Stani-Reginald, saying he is capable of seeking notoriety as a serial killer, NineNewsNational reports.
Instead of attending university or forging a career, Stani-Reginald 'made a deliberate decision to school himself on how to become a serial rapist and murderer,' Mr Tedeschi said.
Miss Thakkar, originally from Gujarat, western India, had moved to Australia two years earlier to take a post-graduate in accounting at the city's Southern Cross University.
The brutal killing took place in the home of Ms Thakkar, who lived in the same house as Stani-Reginald in the Sydney suburb of Croydon, on March 9, 2011.
Stani-Reginald had spent the morning 'studying' the sentences of serial killers and watching pornography focusing on the 'degradation of Indian women,' the court heard.
Macabre education: In the months leading up to the 2011 murder of Miss Thakkar, Daniel Stani-Reginald, then 19, visited thousands of websites dedicated to serial killers and rapists
Brutal killing: Stani-Reginald, now 21, attacked accountancy student Miss Thakkar, stuffed her dismembered body into a suitcase and dumped it in a canal before he went home to read 'Beginnings of a Serial Killer'
After the murder, Stani-Reginald jumped in a cab and transported Miss Thakkar's dismembered body, which he had put in a suitcase, to a canal at Meadowbank, Sydney where it was found two days later.
After dumping the body, he visited a shopping centre before returning home to continue his morbid studies and even spoke to Miss Thakkar's boyfriend as police investigated her disappearance.
Stani-Reginald was not found to have been under any influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the murder and has not shown remorse, Mr Tedeschi said,
'There's not the slightest suggestion he was horrified by what he had done. The community would be justifiably aggrieved if he were to receive a sentence less than life imprisonment," Mr Tedeschi said.
The sentence hearing continues.