Detectives
appeal for witnesses after fatal stabbing of Sri Lankan national Thavisha
Lakindu Peiris in Southey
Sheffield
police have appealed for witnesses after a 25-year-old man was stabbed to death
as he made his final pizza delivery before starting a career as an IT
consultant.
Thavisha
Lakindu Peiris was found by colleagues slumped behind the wheel of his car in
Southey at 10.30pm on Sunday after failing to return from a delivery.
Peiris,
described by police as a "very hard-working, caring and generally nice
lad", had asked to go home from work early on his final shift as he was
feeling unwell but agreed to make one final delivery.
He had moved to
Britain from Sri Lanka in 2011 to study IT at Sheffield Hallam University, and
to help fund his studies he was working at a branch of Domino's Pizza about
five minutes from where he was stabbed. He was due to finish work there on
Sunday after landing an IT job.
Detective
Superintendent Lisa Ray, who is leading the 50-strong team investigating
Peiris's murder, said: "I can only imagine the pain his family in Sri
Lanka are feeling hearing this news.
"He was
very close to his family, he spoke to his mother every single day that he was
in the UK. I'm appealing now to the mothers that are out there. Was it your son
that came home a little bit dishevelled, perhaps [wearing] blood-stained
clothing? I'm asking for anybody out there to think of that family and the end
of that young life, aged 25."
She said police
remained in the dark as to the motive for the attack, but given that the murder
was in an out-of-the-way street it was likely the killer or killers came from
the local area.
She appealed
for witnesses who saw Peiris or anyone in the area acting suspiciously on
Sunday night to come forward. Three people arrested by police have all been
released without charge and eliminated from the inquiry.
Officers have
established that the order to which Peiris was responding was a genuine one. He
left Domino's Pizza at 9.50pm and arrived close to the delivery address 10
minutes later, but never made it to the door. No money appears to have been
stolen. Peiris was driving a silver Toyota Yaris that had no markings to
identify his job, but he was wearing a Domino's Pizza T-shirt.
Ray said police
were trawling CCTV footage from the area and forensic tests were being carried
out on the car but were taking longer than usual because it had been raining on
Sunday night.
In a sign of
the prominence South Yorkshire police are giving to the search for Peiris's
killer, the force changed the photo on its Twitter account to that of the
25-year-old, and posted a series of tweets including one that said: "This is Thavisha Lakindu
Peiris, a bright, hard-working & caring man. He was stabbed to death on
Sunday. Do you know anything?"
Peiris had
begun doing coursework for his degree while still in Sri Lanka and graduated
from Sheffield Hallam last year. "His family funded him to come to England
to further his education and make a good life for himself and that ended
tragically on Sunday night," said Ray. She said his family hoped to travel
to the UK.
