Prosecutors have alleged that a 'sexually obsessed' stepfather took his alleged victim for a birthday meal in Preston three days before he killed her. Nathan Owens, 34, is on trial at Preston Crown Court for the murder, strangulation and grievous bodily harm of his step-daughter Carla Georgescu, who was found dead at her halls of residence in Preston on February 5 this year. He denies the offences.
Birthday meal and shopping weekend
The jury at Preston Crown Court has heard how Carla and her mother Janina spent a weekend shopping for presents and watching TV together on January 31 and February 1, reports Lancs Live. Janina said her daughter, a psychology student, was 'happy and excited' and was looking forward to a trip to Romania on February 5.
On Sunday February 1, Owens drove from the family home in Hartlepool and joined 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.
CCTV footage and return to Preston
The jury at Preston Crown Court has been shown footage of Owens arriving at Ribble Hall on February 1 and parking in the designated parking bays on campus. After the meal, Janina and Owens dropped Carla off at her accommodation and returned home together, the court heard. But a further CCTV compilation shown to the court shows Owens returning to Preston in the early hours of Wednesday 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 KC 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 to go 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?"
"We may never know, depending on what Nathan Owens chooses to tell you. He has a choice about whether to give evidence in his own defence."
Prosecution's case and discovery
The prosecution allege 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 to 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 when she was not answering calls or messages on her birthday. When officers discovered Carla they initially thought she had taken her own life, the court heard. However the prosecution says in the week before Carla died, Owens viewed videos of himself having sex with an effigy wearing her nightdress and with her toy dolls.
Nicholas Lumley KC, prosecuting, 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.
