Mitesh Patel, 37, a British pharmacist has been charged guilty for murdering his wife Jessica and strangling her to death with a supermarket plastic bag.
His murder trial at Teesside Crown Court opened last month and on Tuesday a jury found him guilty of his wife's murder so he could start a new life with his boyfriend whom he met on the gay dating app Grindr.
The court heard how Mitesh had planned to claim a £2-million life insurance payout and move to Australia with lover and “soulmate” Dr. Amit Patel.
Mitesh used to date men on Grindr and had made internet searches, 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?”.
In one of his conversation in July 2015, he had told his Amit: “Her days are marked.”
Mitesh Patel at the beginning of the trial had insisted he was innocent and claimed he had returned home to find their house burgled and his wife’s wrists bound with duct tape.
But prosecutors presented contrary evidence to the jury to show it was Patel himself who had tied her up after injecting her with insulin and strangling and suffocating her with a Tesco supermarket bag.
The court heard that Mitesh Patel used Grindr under the pseudonym “Prince”, and his gay double life was his pharmacy’s “worst kept secret”.
Jessica Patel’s family made a statement at the end of the trial, saying they were “devastated” by her death.
On Tuesday, the jury of six men and six women took three hours of deliberation to give their guilty verdict.
Justice James Goss told the jury a life sentence was mandatory and he would determine Patel’s minimum term behind bars during a sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
Jessica Patel was found at her home on The Avenue in Linthorpe suburb of Middlesborough with “serious injuries” and pronounced dead at the scene on 14th May.
