A ROYAL Opera House designer has been charged with murdering his 35-year-old girlfriend at their East London flat.
Roderick Deakin-White, 37, was arrested after cops called to Whitechapel on Friday over concerns for Amy Parsons’ “welfare” found her dead.
He is due to appear at Thames Magistrates Court this morning charged with her murder.
It is understood Australian-native Amy and Deakin-White had been together for at least six years but their relationship has been strained recently.
Horrified neighbours say Deakin-White, who calls himself a freelance “motion graphic designer”, was “really nice” and always willing to help out at the block of flats.
One told Mail Online: “Rod helped me when our flat flooded. He was the local handyman, the helpful guy to go to in the building.
“We never hung out and chatted or anything, but he was always willing to help. He seemed like a really nice guy.
“I was out at the time it happened, but when I came back there was a bunch of police here – they didn’t tell us much. I actually texted Rod to find out what happened but never got a reply.”
Police were scrambled to the fifth-floor flat in trendy Whitechapel at around 1.30pm on Friday when they discovered stricken Amy.
She was tragically pronounced dead at the scene but a post mortem to establish how she died hasn’t been carried out.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “The family of the victim have been informed.
“Though formal identification has not yet been carried out, she has been named as Amy Parsons, 35, of Crowder Street. A post-mortem is expected to be conducted this week.
“The arrested and the deceased are believed to have been known to each other. At this stage, no other person is being sought in connection with this incident.”
Amy’s death comes as the number of people murdered in London this year hit at least 41.
The UK’s grisly murder rate is also at its highest level for over a decade with 732 homicides in 2018 – 607 of which were murders.
The number hasn’t been this high since murders totalled 661 in the year up to March 2008.
