Admin I Saturday, July 11, 2026
A HEARTLESS killer who bludgeoned a homeless dad to death before callously dumping his body under a tarpaulin in a derelict London social club is facing life behind bars today.
Cold-blooded Daniel Watkis, 30, thought he had committed the perfect murder after concealing the remains of his vulnerable acquaintance, Junior Coleman, inside the eerie, abandoned Brockley Social Club in Lewisham.
But the smirking brute was brought down after a “painstaking” and meticulous investigation by Met Police detectives, who tracked his digital footprint and found a treasure trove of his personal belongings left right next to the rotting corpse.
Yesterday (Friday, July 10), a jury at Woolwich Crown Court saw through Watkis’s web of lies and found him guilty of murder.
A Brutal Betrayal
The court heard how tragic Junior, 43—described by his devastated family as a “much-loved son, brother, father and friend”—had been sleeping rough alongside Watkis in the decaying building on Brockley Road.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 9, chilling CCTV captured the two men walking side-by-side toward the venue, completely unaware of the horror that was about to unfold.
Just before 11:00 PM, Watkis returned to the social club where Junior was resting. It was there that he launched a frenzied, savage attack. A harrowing post-mortem later revealed that Junior died from catastrophic blunt force trauma to his head and face, caused by “repeated heavy blows from a blunt object.”
In a final act of cowardice, Watkis dragged Junior’s body across the room, hiding it beneath a plastic tarpaulin and a pile of debris in a rear bar area.
By 11:40 PM, the killer was spotted on CCTV casually walking away from the scene of the crime, pausing only to steal a final, cold glance back at the building.
In the days that followed, Watkis went to extraordinary lengths to cover his tracks. He immediately ditched his mobile phone and even actively discouraged mutual friends from reporting Junior missing to his increasingly frantic family.
In a brazen bid to outsmart detectives, Watkis called his bank weeks later to claim his debit card had been “stolen.”
But his elaborate deception completely unraveled.
On September 19, following agonizing weeks of silence, police forced their way into the derelict social club. There, they made the grim discovery of Junior’s body.
Right beside the slain father’s remains lay the ultimate proof of Watkis’s guilt. In his haste to flee, the bungling killer had dropped a water bottle forensically linked to his DNA, along with his provisional driving license, his Freedom Pass, and the very bank card he claimed had been stolen—both of which had last been used on the day of the murder.
When heavily armed police stormed Watkis’s address in Hackney on September 24, the cowardly killer offered a wall of silence, muttering “no comment” to almost every question. He even went as far as to deny he had ever met Junior.
But the mountain of digital, forensic, and CCTV evidence built by Scotland Yard proved overwhelming.
Speaking after the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector Suzanne Soren praised Junior’s family for their “remarkable dignity, patience and strength.”
”This was a complex investigation that relied on the determination and professionalism of detectives and forensic specialists,” DCI Soren said. “Today’s verdict means Daniel Watkis has been held accountable. It also sends a clear message that those responsible for the most serious crimes cannot rely on time, concealment or deception to escape justice.”
Watkis was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on October 9, where he faces a mandatory life sentence.
