Three men have been jailed for life over the “brutal and cowardly” Hanworth Park murder of a “football mad” teenager who was ambushed in a west London park, subjected to a sustained knife attack and left to die alone in thick grass.
Daniel Matos, 24, Keith Preddie, 34, and Joshua Cowley, 29, were found guilty of the murder of 19-year-old Tyler Donnelly in Hanworth Park, Feltham, on 24 January 2024. On Thursday they were all given life sentences at the Old Bailey: Matos with a minimum term of 27 years and six months, Preddie at least 27 years, and Cowley 25 years.
Sentencing the men, Judge Mark Dennis KC told them: “This was a brutal and cowardly attack, ambushing your victim who was outnumbered and had no opportunity to try and defend himself against such violence.”
A planned attack caught out by an ankle tag
The court heard that the Hanworth Park murder was planned and targeted. Mr Donnelly had cycled to the park in his role as a runner for a local drug-dealing business operated from a phone number known as the “John line”. Instead of meeting customers, he was set upon and fatally stabbed in the neck.
The defendants were caught because a GPS ankle tag fitted to Matos allowed police to track his movements as he and the other two defendants cycled to the scene in Hanworth Park, two of them armed with large knives. Matos had engaged in three acts of violence in the 10 months before the killing and had been wearing the tag after receiving a suspended sentence for drug dealing.
The “sustained and targeted” attack took five minutes and was not caught on camera or witnessed by anyone, jurors were told. After stabbing Mr Donnelly, the three rode out of the park: Matos changed his clothes at a friend’s address while the other two went to Cowley’s home.
As well as being linked to the scene by the GPS data, Matos’s DNA was identified on an unlit cigarette beside the body and he had the victim’s blood on the sleeve of his hoodie.
Found the next day in thick grass
Mr Donnelly’s body was found the next day in thick grass near his discarded bicycle. He was still carrying nearly 30 packages of heroin and crack cocaine and £300 in cash.
During the trial, the court heard that shortly before the killing, two people had used the “John line” to order drugs and gone to the park expecting to meet Mr Donnelly. Instead, they encountered Preddie — known as “P” — alongside the two others in face coverings or balaclavas and carrying knives.
The original investigation was launched after Mr Donnelly was found unresponsive in Hanworth Park on the morning of 25 January 2024; officers were called to the scene at 7.40am, and post-mortem examinations two days later revealed he had died from a stab wound to the neck.
All three men, of Hounslow, Feltham and Hounslow, had denied any involvement in Mr Donnelly’s death and were convicted of murder after a retrial, in which the jury deliberated for 46 hours and 28 minutes.
“Left in a field in the dark on his own”
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Donnelly’s grandmother, Shelley Packman, described him as a “football mad” Tottenham Hotspur fan who was cheeky, funny, kind-hearted and loved animals, particularly his dog Archie.
“Tyler was only 75 days into his 19th year when he was taken from us in the most cruel and horrific way. He should have walked through the door. Instead, he was left in a field in the dark on his own.”
Mrs Packman told the court about the difficulty of sitting through two trials, and said the defendants had laughed in court and shown “no remorse and no humanity”.
Previously, prosecutor Julian Evans KC had told jurors that the killing came against the background of drug dealing and the “inherent” danger it posed.
Reporting based on PA News reporting at the Old Bailey, via the Bury Times.
