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Hernan Mora

Age: 42

Sex: male

Date: 5 Jul 1997

Place: Skimmers Orchard Farm, Amersham Road, Hazlemere, Hertfordshire

Hernan Mora was beaten to death and his body dumped in Ridge, Hertfordshire.

Two men were tried for his murder but the trial collapsed after the judge stated that the evidence was inconsistent.

His body was found at Summers Wood Farm, in Ridge, wrapped up in a bin bag.

It was said that he had been a drug mule and had been given $500,000 to pass on to a Columbian cartel boss but that he and another man had failed to deliver it. It was said that the money had been handed over to the father of the friend of Hernan Mora, who was also kidnapped and taken to the farm with Hernan Mora and beaten after the money failed to arrive at its destination.

It was said that he and the other man were taken to the farm where they were interrogated and beaten in a portable building and that Heran Mora had had a plastic bag put over his head and was then strangled and garrotted with a saw chain.

The police were said to have found the other man's fingerprints on plastic sheeting that Hernan Mora's body was found wrapped up in. When the police traced the man he told the police how they had been kidnapped by the Columbian men that were tried for Hernan Mora's murder from his flat in Kentish Town and taken to the farm where he was tied up in a chair and that soon after Hernan Mora was also brought in. However, he said that he had managed to get his girlfriend and father to arrange to give the men $130,000 and that he was then later released in north London.

He said that he had seen Hernan Mora murdered and had himself been beaten, pistol whipped and hit over the head with a spade before arranging for some money to be handed over on his behalf. However, at the trial the judge commented that after having been punched in the face and head and hit with the butt of a gun on the head and then hit with a spade over the head that he must have appeared a pretty sorry state when he had returned, but noted that when he had got home his girlfriend had not noticed any injuries, and nor did the police when they went to see him the following day. However, the man said that when he got back he had changed straight away into his pyjamas and said that his girlfriend would not have seen the injuries to his body adding that he had not wanted anyone to notice what had happened to him and had spent the next three weeks wearing long sleeves even though it was summer and it was hot. He also said that when the police came to see him they didn't look at his head or inside his mouth or ask to see his hands.

The man said that the men had demanded the money from Hernan Mora a number of times but said that when he refused to pay it a number of times one of the men gave the order to kill him. He said that they tried to asphyxiate him at first by putting a bag over his head but said that it was too slow and so they then wrapped his head up in clingfilm and then put a saw chain round his neck and used the handle of a shovel to create a tourniquet  from behind and then turned it to tighten it until he died.

At the trial it was heard that there were three Columbian men at the farm, including the two that were on trial for Hernan Mora's murder. It was also said that their boss, the third Columbian man, was in the Netherlands at the time of the trial and that the police were still trying to extradite him.

It was said that the Columbian gang had joined up with a gang from the former Yugoslavia who had provided transport and the use of the farm. The farm owner denied any knowledge of the use of the farm or portable building by drug dealers.


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