LONDON (Reuters) - Police hunting the killer of a part-time policeman stabbed outside her home in northwest London are seeking a man of somalian appearance wearing a hooded top seen running away from the scene.
Special police constable Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, was off duty when she was killed late on Thursday night.
Neighbours called police after they heard her scream and a reported they saw a male in a hooded top running
away.
Police said Patel-Nasri, a hairdresser, had been alone in the Wembley house she shared with her husband Fadi and had gone outside in her night clothes following a disturbance.
A neighbour administered first aid but Patel-Nasri died later in hospital from stab wounds to her leg.
Police said that as one line of inquiry, they were looking into an attempted burglary at the special constable's home on May 6 in which three men tried to get into the house through the front door.
The men were challenged by Patel-Nasri and fled.
Appealing for witnesses at the murder scene on Friday, Detective Superintendent Julian Worker said: "What we believe has happened is that she had come out of her house in her nightdress and dealt with something in the street."
Two high-value cars belonging to Patel-Nasri's husband's limousine hire business were parked outside and may have had something to do with the incident, Worker added.
Police commissioner Ian Blair, said her death was a huge loss to the Metropolitan Police Service.
"It is a tragedy that a young woman who willingly gave up so much of her valuable free time to work as a police officer in her local community should lose her life in this terrible way," he said.
Last November, police constable Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, was shot dead on duty and her colleague police constable Teresa Milburn was injured as they went to investigate an armed robbery in Bradford.
Special constables like Patel-Nasri have the same powers as regular police. They assist officers and carry out their duties in their spare time.
