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Ricky Smith

Age: 25

Sex: male

Date: 3 Oct 1997

Place: Hamilton Road, Highbury Park, London

Ricky Smith was stabbed in the chest in Hamilton Road as he was walking home with his partner after a night out on 3 October 1997.

He had been out with his partner on the Friday night and was going to a kebab house on his way home when he was stabbed at 11.30pm.

Ricky Smith was taken to hospital but died on arrival.

It was thought that the attack was random and it was linked to an earlier attack on a different person two hours earlier in College Road, Harlesden which was also unprovoked and which were later linked by forensic evidence.

It was thought that the man that stabbed Ricky Smith in Hamilton Road then fled into Highbury Park and then into Aubert Park, and then into Avenell Road and then into Conewood Street opposite the old Arsenal football ground where the police found a blue baseball cap, a jacket with the words, 'Chicago Bulls' on it, and a five-inch lock knife with a £9.95 price sticker on it. The lock-knife was found in a back garden at the junction of Aubert Park and Aubert Road. They also found two carrier bags. The jacket was described as dark blue with red and white shoulder flashes. ‘Chicago Bulls’ was written on the back under a picture of a bull’s face and the word ‘Bulls’ was written on the front. A label inside the jacket was marked ‘Starter’. The knife had a brown wood-effect and brass handle and a yellow £9.95 price sticker on it.

One of the carrier bags was a green Fenwicks bag with ‘Brent Cross’ written across it and the other was a white ‘Wilkies’ carrier bag.

DNA evidence from the items was used to link the two attacks.

It was reported that a man later tried to retrieve the items that had been left in Conewood Street but was told by a resident that the police had taken them.

The attack on the man in College Road had happened at about 9.15pm. The 21-year-old man who had been on his way to a party had been stabbed in the chest and abdomen by a man that had asked him for the time. The man had had a carrier bag with him that had cans of beer in it which the attacker took and then walked off with towards Kensal Rise station.

The attacker was described as being black, tall and aged between 18-30.

The police said that the man said nothing before he stabbed Ricky Smith.

The police later said in October 2022 that they thought that the man that stabbed Ricky Smith had possibly fled overseas. They said that he was a dangerous man and that they were surprised that he had not re-offended, which would have resulted in his DNA being taken and probably matched. As such, the police appealed for people that had been living in the Highbury or Kensal Green area who knew of anyone matching the description that vanished in 1997.

Ricky Smith was a floor fitter and had two children.


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