A young man from Slovakia looking for work as a translator, Kovari met Port online in August 2014 and moved in as his flatmate. Days later, on August 28, 2014, his body was found propped up against a wall in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church, near Port's home.
A forged suicide note was placed on Daniel Whitworth's body. The note claimed that Whitworth had accidentally killed Gabriel Kovari while having sex and had decided to take his own life out of guilt.
The deaths of Kovari and Whitworth, along with Walgate and the final victim, Jack Taylor, were subject to a series of inquests that concluded in December 2021. The inquest findings were scathing: gabriel-and-daniel-case
Stephen Port was sentenced to a whole-life order in November 2016, meaning he will never be released. The case spurred intense scrutiny of police procedures in the UK and led to the BBC drama Four Lives , which detailed the failings of the investigation.
Stephen Port, a chef living in Barking, used dating apps (particularly Grindr and Fitlads) to lure young men to his flat, where he drugged them with fatal doses of the date-rape drug GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate). A young man from Slovakia looking for work
Despite the similarities—both victims were young gay men, both were found in the same spot, both died of GHB overdoses, and both had their mobile phones missing—police treated the deaths as "unexplained" rather than suspicious. Inquest Findings and Police Failings
This detailed piece outlines the case of Gabriel Kovari and Daniel Whitworth, two of the four victims murdered by Stephen Port in Barking, East London, between 2014 and 2015. The case is widely recognized not only for its brutality but also for the critical failings of the Metropolitan Police in identifying the pattern of killings. The Victims and the Pattern The note claimed that Whitworth had accidentally killed
The coroner found that "fundamental failings" by the Metropolitan Police probably contributed to three of the four deaths.