'Nigerian Man' Charged With Beheading Great-Grandmother

'Nicholas is an only child and his parents brought him here from Nigeria. But when he was about 13 or 14 he left home.'

This is the man charged with murdering great-grandmother Palmira Silva, who was brutally beheaded in a machete attack in her garden.

Nicholas Salvador, 25, is unemployed and was staying with a friend a few doors from the 82-year-old widow in Edmonton, North London.

Palmira Silva

CCTV has emerged of Mr Salvador's movements two hours before the murder, which shows him eating a quarter-pounder burger and an egg in a nearby cafe before apparently walking out without paying.He was stopped by staff and returned to settle the bill, according to the footage published in The Sun.

Waitress Hayley Kaya, 27, told the newspaper he 'looked as if his mind was somewhere else' but added: 'At the time I served him he just seemed like a normal customer.' 

Last night Salvador was charged with murdering Mrs Silva and with assaulting a police officer. He is due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in north London later this morning.

Nicknamed ‘Fat Nick’, the would-be cage fighter being held by police left home 11 years ago. 

A friend said: ‘Nicholas is an only child and his parents brought him here from Nigeria. But when he was about 13 or 14 he left home.'

'The truth is, he has never felt loved. He has been unlucky all his life.

‘He was always down, he never smiled, he never had any money. He was a known failure.’

Another friend said: ‘He is from a Muslim background but he is not a good Muslim – he gambles, plays roulette. 

'When he left home his mum found him a room somewhere and said she would pay two months’ rent, and after that he was on his own.’ 

A former classmate at Salisbury School, Edmonton, said: ‘We used to call him St Nicholas because he never got up to anything. He was always saying he wanted a girlfriend.’

Virgin Media worker Myrvin Kirwan, 36, who was in the house next door when the murder happened on Thursday, said: ‘He jumped over the fence and he was standing there with a machete.

'He had blood on his hands. He was looking straight at me, but it was almost as if he was looking straight through me.’  

Salvador had been taken to hospital and remained under police guard before being questioned by officers and charged late last night.

Police were forced to stage a dramatic evacuation operation to save neighbours during the incident, and an armed squad Tasered the suspect as he struggled against officers, leaving one with a broken wrist.

The house in the busy street where the Italian widow's body was found was the scene of a major police operation after officers were called to the scene initially to reports that a man had beheaded an animal.

Scotland Yard said that its officers distracted the man after he was seen going through back gardens in Nightingale Road to prevent him attacking anyone else, while they evacuated people from nearby homes.

Palmira Silva moved to London from her native Italy with her husband Domenico to start a new life.

They married, started a family and began a successful restaurant business.

But six decades on from the day they set foot in the capital, Mrs Silva would become a tragic victim of the other side of Britain, horrifically slaughtered in her garden by a machete-wielding killer.

Last night members of the 82-year-old widow’s extended family were in shock as they struggled to come to terms with how anyone could murder a great-grandmother described by neighbours and those who got to know her as ‘an angel… a lovely, smiling grandma’.

Her daughter Celestina told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s just the most horrendous thing to do to another human being. We simply can’t make any sense of it.’ 

Mrs Silva arrived in Britain from southern Italy in the 1950s and immediately found a job as a nanny. Domenico had travelled separately to England but knew he had found his future wife from the moment he first saw her.

Together they saved enough money to fulfil a dream of starting their own business and raised Celestina and a son, Rino, making sure they immersed themselves in English culture without forgetting their Italian roots.

They ran a succession of cafes and snack bars in different parts of the city before settling in North London. 

Mr Silva died in 2008 but in Edmonton, the family continued the business with Silva’s Cafe building up a solid base of regular customers who enjoyed Mrs Silva’s friendliness as much as her food.

She had only recently stopped working full time at the cafe that she and her son ran in Church Street, a few minutes walk from her home. Known there as Pam, she had become a much loved and familiar face, gradually handing over the running to Rino, now 53, after her husband died. 

Mrs Silva had been back from a family holiday in Italy for only a week when she died.

Celestina, 49, said: ‘She knew the area was changing but she was determined to stay. It seems such a dreadful, senseless waste.’

Yesterday friends and local residents paid tribute to Mrs Silva and sent condolences to her family.

Dilek Solma, 19, who works in a shop next door, described her as ‘an angel with a lovely smile’ adding: ‘She was really kind… just so nice.’

Andrew Zouvani, 66, owner of Guy’s Hair Salon opposite the cafe, said: ‘I’ve known her for 35 years, I used to go over and she would serve me drinks, she was really nice.

‘She was a very nice lady, and she wouldn’t give up working. We would joke that I couldn’t understand her after 35 years because of her strong Italian accent.’

Chris Moles, 44, a worker at a Church Street florist, said: ‘She was a very friendly lady. She was lovely really, like a lovely grandma.’

By last night the cafe had become a focal point for tributes, a carpet of flowers and wreaths growing in front of the shuttered doors. Most were left by shocked friends, customers and nearby local businesses, one describing her as ‘a truly wonderful lady’.

Another encapsulated local anger and grief in six poignant words: ‘One more angel taken,’ it said. ‘So sad.’