THE chilling case of a pharmacist who murdered his wife in cold blood as he planned to start a new life in Australia with his gay lover is set to feature in a week long documentary series.
Mitesh Patel strangled his wife Jessica in their home before casually heading to his favourite pizza shop to create an alibi for his callous murder by pretending it was a burglary gone wrong.
He stood to gain from a £2m insurance policy which he planned to use to fulfil his fantasy of emigrating to Sydney to be with his “soulmate” Dr Amit Patel.
The serial liar became increasingly detached from reality, using online gay dating apps to avoid the mundane of his relationship and his job at the successful pharmacy he jointly owned with his 34-year-old wife.
Now his web of deceit is to feature in the second season of the five-part true-crime series Killer Britain with Dermot Murnaghan on the Crime + Investigation channel starting later this month.
He will be joined by former Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, Clive Driscoll, best known for securing the convictions for the murder of London teenager Stephen Lawrence.
The five murder stories are told with archive footage and key interviews from those closest to the case, including family members of the victims and the investigating officers who were first at the scene.
In 2018, Teesside Crown Court heard during a three-week trial how Patel subdued Jessica, 34, with insulin, before restraining her with duct tape wrapped at least four times around her wrists and ankles inside their home on The Avenue, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough.
A post mortem examination revealed that Jessica, who worked as a pharmacist alongside her husband in the Roman Road Pharmacy, Middlesbrough, had been strangled and suffocated with a plastic shopping bag.
The jury had heard Patel had made internet searches dating back years, including "I need to kill my wife", "insulin overdose", "plot to kill my wife, do I need a co-conspirator?", "hiring hitman UK" and "how much methadone will kill you?".
Patel was convicted of her murder after data from his iPhone health app showed how he had frantically climbed up and down stairs while staging the break-in.
CCTV footage from outside the couple's home also showed 34-year-old Jessica entering the property for the final time and no-one else coming or going until the body was discovered.
The couple had ran a successful pharmacy together but their marriage was unhappy, with the husband repeatedly seeking sex with men he met on the Grindr dating app.
Despite his repeated infidelity with men he met on Grindr and also being in love with Dr Patel, the killer desperately tried to persuade his wife to have a baby using IVF.
When she voiced her doubts about going through with the process amid concerns about his infidelity.
She did eventually go through three cycles of the fertility treatment and the last was successful, resulting in three embryos which now lie frozen in a Darlington clinic.
- The show airs on June 2 at 9pm.
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