Yeray Sanchez Morales

On the evening of Wednesday 27 August 2025, shortly before 11pm, Yeray Sanchez Morales was sitting outside a McDonald's restaurant on Old Kent Road in Southwark, south-east London, with a friend when a group of young men approached them. What followed was a violent, fast-moving attack in which Yeray was stabbed several times in the neck and chest, struck with a bottle and kicked, while a crowd of onlookers watched. His friend was also injured. Emergency services took Yeray to hospital.

He did not recover, and died in hospital a week later, on 3 September 2025, according to reporting tied to the Inner South London Coroner's Court record. He was 17 years old. Police said at the time that Yeray appeared to have been picked out at random rather than known to his attackers.

The Metropolitan Police opened a murder investigation and, working with CCTV footage, mobile phone recordings and forensic evidence, identified and arrested a number of suspects, several of them teenagers. In September 2026, sentencing hearings concluded. Christhofer Jesus Vasquez, 18, from Enfield, and Andres Tapia Londono, 18, from Haringey, were convicted of manslaughter and each given four-year prison sentences. Isaac Ros Ramirez, 18, of Hackney, and Juan Betancourt Hoyos, 21, of Haringey, were convicted of violent disorder and handed community orders. Younger defendants who could not be named for legal reasons were also convicted of related offences.

Yeray's mother, Elena Morales, said through the Metropolitan Police that "his life was stolen," describing him as "a sensitive, happy, polite and generous young man" with "a special way of connecting with others." A funeral was later held at San Gines Church in Arrecife, Lanzarote, after his body was repatriated from the United Kingdom.

Yeray was born in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to Colombian parents and later lived in Leyton, east London, where he attended school. Reporting after his death said he had spent the summer of 2025 with family in Lanzarote before returning to London on 20 August to resume classes. Friends and relatives remembered a teenager who hoped to become a PE teacher and who was known for kindness and an easy manner with other people.

Yeray's death became a widely reported example of teenage knife violence in London and of a prosecution that relied heavily on digital evidence, including social media images posted by suspects. His parents' public tributes, and the community farewell in Lanzarote, kept attention on the human cost of the attack beyond the court outcomes. This page will be updated if further verified biographical details are released.