The man accused of murdering his 19-year-old stepdaughter after developing a 'dangerous sexual obsession' with her can be pictured for the first time. Nathan Owens, 34, is said to have strangled Carla Georgescu with a leather belt after driving more than 100 miles through the night to her student halls in Preston in February this year.
Secret images and effigy
Jurors have heard Owens kept a secret library of images he had taken of Carla doing household chores in her underwear or pyjamas and had filmed himself having sex with an 'effigy' dressed in the teenager's nightie. His disturbing 'fascination' with his stepdaughter may have erupted into a fatal sex attack because he knew Carla was due to fly out to Romania the next day and was planning to meet a new boyfriend, prosecutors said.
Footage has already been played at Preston Crown Court showing Carla – wearing a fluffy dressing gown and pyjamas – letting Owens into her accommodation in the early hours of February 4. He is then recorded leaving around 90 minutes later, again with his head and face hidden. Jurors have now seen footage of the moment Owens was arrested at home.
Journey home and discovery
After the alleged murder, the court has heard Owens drove back home to Hartlepool, throwing away items including bedding bearing the student's DNA. Owens' wife and Carla's mum, Janina Georgescu, had no idea he left the house and made the journey while she slept, jurors have heard. She later told police her husband would typically stay up all night playing games and usually went to bed when she woke up for work.
Mrs Georgescu became worried when Carla failed to reply to messages the following day – what would have been her 20th birthday – and called the police, who found her body. The court heard they initially thought she had taken her own life, before noticing she had several suspicious injuries.
Prosecution details
Nicholas Lumley KC, prosecuting, has told jurors: 'Carla Georgescu had been gravely assaulted, beaten about the head, stabbed to the face, the blade connecting with her hands as she tried to defend herself, before being strangled to death by use, at the very least, of the belt and then suspended from the wardrobe handle. There had plainly been some form of grievous sexual activity too. Hardly surprising given his obsession with her.'
The court heard Owens' devices were seized and an examination of them showed he had transferred 14,417 still and moving images to a laptop two weeks before the killing. Most were pornographic but there were also hundreds taken of Carla at the family home, dressed in underwear or short pyjamas, it was said. Owens is also said to have created so-called deepfakes of Carla, superimposing her face onto explicit images. There were also a video and 30 screenshots of Owens having sex with an effigy, wearing Carla's clothing, jurors heard.
Owens denies murder, strangulation and GBH. The trial continues.
