When a London couple welcomed a young Colombian man they’d met online, they thought they’d found family. Instead, they invited death into their home—a friendship that ended in blood, betrayal, and a suitcase on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Mosquera with Albert Alfonso and Paul Longworth. Photo: social media.You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
Time is now or never.
Queer voices disappear without independent journalism to amplify them.
We document what others won't touch.
We hold power to account when it threatens our communities.
This work exists only because you choose to fund it directly.
Donate over €25/month and receive our limited-edition tote bag — a badge of resistance, a statement that you stand for fearless journalism.
We are grateful!
Can't donate? Sharing our work helps more than you think
You can simply scroll past — but please don’t overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
Time is now or never.
Queer voices disappear without independent journalism to amplify them.
We document what others won't touch.
We hold power to account when it threatens our communities.
This work exists only because you choose to fund it directly.
Donate over €25/month and receive our limited-edition tote bag — a badge of resistance, a statement that you stand for fearless journalism.
We are grateful!
Can't donate? Sharing our work helps more than you think
In the gentle anonymity of Shepherd’s Bush, where stucco terraces lean shoulder to shoulder like ageing neighbours and the trains hum along the Hammersmith line, Albert Alfonso and Paul Longworth lived a quiet, deliberate life. They were the kind of couple one forgets to notice: Albert, sixty-two, a swimming instructor at the local leisure centre, the sort who remembered every pupil’s name; Paul, seventy-one, a retired handyman with an affection for repairing clocks. Their flat was small but comfortable, a museum of decades together. On the mantelpiece sat framed photographs from a trip to Colombia—sun-drenched beaches, cocktails, the kind of laughter that belongs to people who believe themselves safe.
The man in those photographs—the tall, striking thirty-something standing between them—was Yostin Andrés Mosquera. He called them his “English family.” They called him “our friend from Bogotá.” But the friendship would unravel into one of the most brutal crimes London had seen in years, a story of generosity corrupted by greed, of affection curdled into horror.
The Betrayal on Scott Road
On the evening of 10 July 2024, as England’s victory over the Netherlands in the Euro semi-final emptied Bristol’s pubs, a man struggled across the cobbled pavement near the Clifton Suspension Bridge, dragging two oversized suitcases. Revellers leaving a nearby pub noticed him — one even quipped, “That looks really heavy; what have you got in there, a body?” Shortly before midnight a cyclist offered assistance to the apparently lost stranger. When blood began dripping from one of the cases, the Good Samaritan’s concern turned to alarm. The man fled on foot, abandoning his luggage on Brunel’s hundred-sixty-year-old suspension bridge. Inside the cases police discovered the dismembered remains of two men.
What followed was what Detective Chief Inspector Ollie Stride of the Metropolitan Police would later describe as one of the force’s “most harrowing” investigations. The trail led back to a modest flat on Scott Road in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, where Albert Alfonso, 62, a swimming instructor and gym manager, and his civil partner, Paul Longworth, 71 — a retired handyman — had been murdered two days earlier. Their severed heads were found in a chest freezer. The man who fled the bridge — Yostin Andrés Mosquera, 35, a Colombian porn actor who spoke little English — had been their house-guest.
On Friday 24 October 2025, Mr Justice Joel Bennathan sentenced Mosquera to life imprisonment with a minimum term of forty-two years at Woolwich Crown Court. “It was their tragedy that you, Yostin Mosquera, came into their lives,” the judge said, adding that Mosquera “may never be safe for release.” The defendant, wearing what appeared to be a wooden crucifix and requiring a Spanish interpreter, seemed to smile as he left the dock.
The Lover Guest in the Flat
Alfonso and Longworth’s relationship was uncomplicated and enduring; a London couple who had spent decades together. Their guest arrived via the digital age. In 2012 Alfonso found Mosquera on a gay webcam site; over time the transactional blurred into something else. Mosquera appeared on holiday photos with them in Medellín in early 2024, smiling and comfortable. When he returned to London in June of that year, Alfonso set him up with English lessons, gym fees and even football with a five-a-side team. The couple had, by all accounts, opened their home and their lives to him.
Yet beneath all this generosity lay a darker calculus. Mosquera sold fetishistic pornographic material online — videos involving human faeces, urine and vomit — reportedly for between US $25 and US $100. Investigators later discovered his laptop records contained searches like “how to cause fatal head injury”, “industrial blender for bones” and “chest freezer deep free-flow”.
Yostin Andrés Mosquera, 35, was caught by cameras with two suitcases dripping blood, containing the remains of victims. Photo: social media.Night of the Killings
On the afternoon of 8 July 2024, Longworth was at home. Hours later his skull would be shattered by a hammer blow. Investigators uncovered CCTV showing him chatting with a neighbour, alive, while Mosquera’s laptop logged searches such as “where on the head is a knock fatal?”
Later that evening, in the same flat and surrounded by cameras that the couple used for sexual recordings, Mosquera’s final victim arrived — Alfonso. What came next was captured on film. In court the jury viewed footage of Mosquera repeatedly stabbing Alfonso in the face, neck and upper arms — at least thirteen times — during what had begun as a consensual encounter; Mosquera is heard taunting his victim, “Do you like it?”
The murder was followed by a dancing celebration. After the killing, the clip shows Mosquera standing naked, dancing beside his victims’ bodies — a scene of grotesque triumph that courtroom observers described as a moment of “euphoric terror”.
Dismemberment, Flight and Capture
In the hours after the murders, Mosquera ordered a chest freezer and began dismembering both bodies with the precision of someone who had planned every step ahead of time. Some parts were frozen, others placed in a hired van and transported to Bristol with the intention of dumping them from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. One of the suitcases leaked blood, triggering the intervention of a cyclist and later the police.
Three days later, on 13 July 2024, Mosquera was arrested at Bristol Temple Meads station. He was carrying just £900, a suitcase and a rail ticket. The suitcase label tied him to the London flat; the discovery of a freezer bearing the couple’s address supplied further evidence.
The Trial and Sentence
Mosquera’s trial at Woolwich Crown Court in July 2025 lasted several weeks. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of loss of control in relation to Alfonso but denied murdering Longworth, claiming Alfonso had killed his partner first. Prosecutors led by Deanna Heer KC dismantled his case. They pointed to the video footage, the search histories, the frozen remains and the attempted theft of £4,000 from Alfonso’s account that night.
The jury deliberated for five hours before returning a unanimous guilty verdict on both counts. Sentencing followed on 24 October 2025. Mr Justice Bennathan characterised the crimes as “premeditated and thoroughly wicked.” He noted that Mosquera acted “for gain” and may never be safe for release. The concurrent sentence for possession of more than 6,000 indecent images of children drew a further sixteen-month term, to run alongside the life sentence.
Aftermath
Hardest to interpret is the betrayal. A couple who extended compassion welcomed a stranger; a guest who became a predator. The camera that once recorded consensual pleasure captured murder. The generosity of decades — from buying gym memberships to facilitating relocation — ended in the most violent of dissolutions.
At the sentencing hearing Detective Chief Inspector Stride told the court: “They welcomed Mosquera into their home … and they did not deserve to have their lives taken in such a horrific way.” The words were plain, but the sadness deep.
Their flat on Scott Road has returned to its anonymity — curtained windows, letter-box unchanged — yet the memory of what transpired there persists, a reminder that trust, even in the digital age, carries risk. The suitcases on the bridge are gone; the man will serve decades behind bars. But the images remain: cameras, freezers, dancing in the dark, and the brutal end of an unexpected friendship.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
* * *
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know.
* * *
You can listen to our podcast Queer News & Journalism on your favourite platform or go to our YouTube Channel @GAY45mag.
* * *
Let us know what you think at [email protected].
* * *
Submit a letter to the editor at [email protected].
* * *
We appreciate it. Thanks for reading.
