A dominating husband, who stabbed his wife to death and then wrapped up her body in a duvet before hiding it in their garage, has been sentenced to a minimum of 22 years in jail.
Anil Gill, 47, knifed his wife Ranjit 18 times in the living room of their Milton Keynes home, but it was four deep and significant injuries to her chest that caused her death.
After wrapping up her body and dragging it to their garage, he waited hours before calling the police and was set about cleaning the murder scene.
Police officers, who eventually attended the couple’s home, found the body of 43-year-old Ranjit in the garage.
On Friday Gill was found guilty of the murder by a jury at Luton Crown Court.
Jailing him for life, Judge Mark Bishop said: “It was a furious and savage attack with a knife, inflicting eighteen wounds – some of great depth. The last wound was to cut her throat.
“It was a ruthless, cold blooded attack.”
He said the murder was a “prolonged and ferocious attack” carried out with a knife taken from the kitchen and while he was under the influence of cocaine.
The killing, in January of this year, came as the couple’s relationship was floundering and dogged by heavy drinking, constant rows and drug-taking.
Over the years the husband had regularly shouted at his wife, hit or slapped her and, on one occasion, had struck her around her head.
Once he had kicked her ankle and there had been another time when he hit her across her back with a plank.
He had threatened her with a knife and had pushed her down the stairs.
On another occasion he was said to have threatened Ranjit with a Japanese sword and held a knife to her neck.
During the month long trial, Luton crown court heard that when Ranjit Gill’s sister advised her to leave her husband, she told her sibling that if she did, she feared “he would hunt her down and kill her.”
In the early hours of January 31 this year the couple were at home in Beresford Close, Emerson Valley, Milton Keynes after an evening spent taking cocaine and drinking.
Shortly before the killing the husband had been on his computer searching gay porn sites; one search term used had been “Cocaine brings out the gay in me.”
Around 1:00 am in the early hours of the Sunday morning a neighbour had gone to bed when she had heard the sound of a woman screaming followed by a “thumping or pounding sound.”
Charles Ward-Jackson prosecuting said: “It’s very likely she heard the sound of Ranjit being stabbed to death.”
After killing his wife, Gill spent the next few hours cleaning up and wrapping up his wife’s body in a duvet and black bin liners, which he then dragged to the garage.
He cleaned the carpet in the living room using bleach and the two knives were put in a bin bag, having been cleaned. Around 10:00 am that morning he finally called the police.
Gill was found guilty of his wife’s murder after the jury rejected his claims during the trial that he had lost self control and acted in a “frenzy” after she had taunted him about an affair she had had.
He had earlier admitted his wife’s manslaughter.
During the trial the court heard at first the couple’s marriage was a happy one, but after they moved from Bedford to Milton Keynes where he lost his well paid job and she had health problems, things changed.
In 2018 the police had attended the couple’s home following an incident between them, but when she refused to tell officers what had happened, no action was taken.
From then on, the jury was told, to cope with the abuse she began drinking heavily and, in the summer of 2020, she had an affair with a man who would supply her with drugs.
Towards the end of the year the wife had called a domestic violence charity hotline and the husband was also looking into starting possible divorce proceedings.
Mr Ward-Jackson said in the weeks leading up to the killing both were drinking to excess and taking cocaine bought from the man Ranjit had been seeing.
The court heard that having been arrested and taken into custody, Mr Gill was seen by a psychiatric nurse and told him how he didn’t drink and never took drugs, which was a lie.
He claimed he had agreed to take alcohol and cocaine the previous night and the combination had “turned him into a killer.”
But the prosecution said a sample of the husband’s hair was taken for analysis and revealed traces of cocaine in it, showing he had to have been taking the drug from late December of 2020 to late January of 2021 and not just the night before.