A man accused of murdering his 19-year-old stepdaughter was seen walking to her halls of residence with a blanket over his head the day before she was found dead, prosecutors allege.
Nathan Owens, 34, denies the murder, strangulation and grievous bodily harm of Carla Georgescu. Carla, a second-year psychology student at the University of Lancashire, was found dead at her halls of residence in Victoria Street, Preston, on February 5 - her 20th birthday.
CCTV footage shown to jury
The jury at Preston Crown Court heard how Carla and her mother, Janina, spent the weekend of January 31 and February 1 shopping for presents and watching TV together, Lancashire Live reports. Janina said her daughter was "happy and excited" and looking forward to a trip to Romania on February 5.
On February 1, Owens drove from the family home in Hartlepool to join the pair for a meal at Kimji Korean restaurant. At the end of the meal, Janina left her husband and daughter together at the table, the trial heard.
The jury was shown footage of Owens arriving at Ribble Hall on February 1 and parking in the designated bays on campus. After the meal, Janina and Owens dropped Carla off at her accommodation before returning together to the east coast, the court heard.
Return to Preston in early hours
However, a second CCTV compilation showed Owens returning to Preston in the early hours of February 4. This time, he parked some distance from the university accommodation and covered his head with a blanket before making his way to the student block, prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC told the jury.
Mr Lumley said: "Why choose to go that night? We may never know. He would have known that Carla was due to leave for Romania the next day, to go with her friend on a trip to that country.
"He would have known she had struck up a romantic relationship with a young man who she also planned to see in the near future. It could have been there was a degree of sexual jealousy. Did he not want her to be romantically involved with anyone else?"
Alleged sexual obsession
The prosecution alleges Owens stabbed and strangled Carla before leaving her in her bedroom. She was found slumped against her wardrobe on February 5, with injuries to her head and defensive marks on her hands, as well as sexual injuries. A belt was tightly wrapped around her neck, the jury was told.
Carla's mother asked campus security to check on her daughter after she failed to answer calls or messages on her birthday. When officers discovered her body, they initially thought she had taken her own life, the court heard.
However, the prosecution alleges that in the week before Carla's death, Owens viewed videos of himself having sex with an effigy dressed in her nightdress and with her toy dolls.
Mr Lumley said: "Her death was the culmination, the end point, of weeks, months and perhaps years of a one-sided sexual obsession.
"And it was the beginning of a complex murder investigation, which led to his door in Hartlepool. It was he who was sexually fixated on Carla and it was he, Nathan Owens, who had killed Carla."
The trial continues.
