Attila Ban: Double killer hid from police inside divan bed for TWO DAYS while the body of one victim lay on top

  • Attila Ban stabbed Tibor Vass, 20, before murdering his victim’s girlfriend
  • Ban then hid from police inside the bed where he dumped one of the bodies
  • The 32-year-old even updated his Facebook status from his hiding place

By
Helen Lawson

11:28 EST, 18 July 2012

|

18:00 EST, 18 July 2012

A hotel receptionist who killed two colleagues and then hid from police inside the bed where he dumped one of the bodies is facing life is prison after being found guilty of their murders.

Attila Ban stabbed Tibor Vass, 20, before murdering his victim’s girlfriend Alice Adams, also 20.

The 32-year-old killer even updated his Facebook status from his hiding place during the early hours of August 10 last year as police searched for clues into the violent deaths of his co-workers, writing: ‘I’d like to wake up from this nightmare.’

A jury at the Old Bailey heard how performing arts student Miss Adams, who had only worked at the hotel as a receptionist for three weeks, was found fully-clothed lying on the floor of Ban’s staff quarters at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow Airport, with a cushion over her face like ‘a discarded rag doll’.

Divan bed where Attila Ban hid

Attila Ban guilty

The divan bed where Attila Ban (right) dumped Tibor Voss’s body and hid from police for two days

She had been stabbed 22 times on the front and back of her body, penetrating her heart, left lung, spleen, stomach and diaphragm.

Hungarian-born Ban had stabbed Mr Vass twice in the heart and carried his body to a double bed after cutting off the dead man’s t-shirt and boxer shorts, leaving him naked.

The court was told that openly gay Ban had an unrequited crush on fellow Hungarian Mr Vass, becoming agitated in the days before the killings after Mr Vass won a place at a university back in Hungary.

Ban had been jealous about Mr Vass’s relationships, and just days before the killing launched an outburst at his victim during a team building exercise when he took a picture that did not feature Ban, the court heard.

Colleagues discovered the bloodied scene when the three receptionists failed to turn up for work the next morning, summoning police to the flat in New Road, Harlington.

Detectives combed the sealed-off quarters for clues but did not discover Ban, who was named as the hotel’s employee of the year in 2010, until the second day of their investigations.

He was lying on another double bed after attempting to take his own life.

He had tried to slit his wrists with modelling knives and electrocute himself with a hairdryer in the bath.

Officers found that Ban had water and his mobile phone with him and had cut a slit in the divan bed that he hid in so he could observe the investigation.

Tibor Vass and Alice Adams, killed by Attila BanTibor Vass was due to return to Hungary to attend university, while Alice Adams studied performing arts

Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said: ‘How had he been in the flat unnoticed? There’s been gaps cut in the side that allowed someone to climb inside. 

‘So throughout the time of those that had been in the flat dealing with the investigation and removing the bodies, it appears Ban was concealed under the bed, no doubt able to hear everything that was said and sufficient presence of mind to keep himself concealed despite all that that was going on around him in that flat at the time.’

Ban had pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but the jury at the Old Bailey found him guilty of the double murders.

Officers had searched the loft area of the quarters after failing to find bloodied footprints leading away from the crime scene.

Outside court, Detective Inspector John Finch said police had not been negligent for not looking under the bed.

He said: ‘I have looked back at this several times with senior management. It was such a strange and bizarre thing for a person to do. It beggars belief.’

He said crime-scene examiners would lose crucial forensic evidence if they lifted up beds looking for people who were not there.

Mr Finch added: ‘I would not want anyone to do anything differently in the future.’

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Almost every week there are stories like this. These people do not belong in our country. Get them out.

So the headline mentions a “sex party,” and yet nothing in the article even hints at any such thing. Terrible journalism as usual, DM.

His sexuality was relevant because he had a unrequited crush on the victim and was therefore jealous of his girlfriend. Was that so hard to work out?
– Kate, London, 18/7/2012 17:06 =========================== Plenty of stories of straight men fighting and killing over “love triangles” and unrequited love. Never saw the title “Straight double killer” before. :/ Shouldn’t reading the story make that obvious enough? I suppose it’s actually for the same reason why DM runs the title “woman” or mentions certain skin colours in any story of crime. It’s so rare and surprising for that demographic to be violent, that you have to make a point of it. In which case, people shouldn’t be offended at the title. DM does not have to point out if someone is “straight” or “white” or “male” because people expect it and it is automatically known/assumed.

Rot in prison.

What evidence was there that it was a ‘sex party’ if it was an unrequited crush?

Why the exact rerun of this story?

Must be that facebook addiction. But don’t worry, once you’re behind bars you’ll probably get a I-phone with internet acces sponsored by the tax payers, so you can keep us up to date!

Oh ok I’ll hide under the bed in future then!!

Why hide there? Why not leave the scene of the crime and get as far away as poss and stay away? It makes no sense!

I’m surprised the Brits haven’t blamed Facebook again and called for it to be shutdown.

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