A stepfather who murdered his 19-year-old stepdaughter after becoming 'sexually fixated' on her smirked as he was found guilty today. Nathan Owens, 34, was convicted at Preston Crown Court of killing Carla Georgescu, whose body was found in her room at the University of Lancashire campus in Preston on what would have been her 20th birthday in February.
Owens drove 100 miles to attack
Owens had driven 100 miles through the night before to launch his attack, strangling Carla to death during a 'violent sexual assault'. Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC told jurors that Owens 'had a wholly improper and dangerously entrenched sexual obsession with his stepdaughter'.
He took hundreds of photos of Carla in her underwear or pyjamas, doctored innocent images of her into indecent ones, and even filmed himself having sex with a life-sized effigy of the teenager in her bedroom.
Guilty verdict after three hours
Owens denied murder but was convicted after just three hours of deliberations. He will be sentenced on a later date.
In a press release issued after the verdict, Lancashire Police said Carla 'had her whole life ahead of her'. They described her as 'intelligent, gentle and articulate', studying clinical psychology at undergraduate level with plans for post-graduate studies in Romania. She was meant to travel to Romania the day after she was found, with her friend to meet her boyfriend for the first time.
Final goodbye and secret drive
Carla's mum had stayed with her daughter the weekend before she was killed. They went shopping and got dinner together before Owens joined them for a birthday meal on February 1. Carla said her final goodbye to her mother at around 9pm that night.
Just over 72 hours later, Owens set off on a secret drive back to Carla's flat while her mum slept. CCTV footage captured his arrival, parking in a side street instead of his usual spot. Another clip shows Carla coming downstairs to open the door for Owens, who hid his appearance underneath a blanket. That was the last time she was seen alive.
Staged scene and conviction
After assaulting and murdering Carla, Owens staged the scene to make her death look like a suicide. Officers who attended hours later initially believed the ruse, until a closer look revealed the teenager's injuries.
When arrested, Owens claimed he had nothing to do with Carla's death. He decided not to step into the witness box. The jurors saw him smirk through the prosecutor's closing speech.
Mr Lumley said Owens had made the long drive that night because 'he knew that was the last chance to catch her' before she flew to Romania the next day. He was determined 'to satisfy his sexual needs, come what may'.
Owens will be sentenced tomorrow. DI Pete Macdonald said: 'Carla was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, a life that was taken away by someone she should have been able to trust. Owens had a despicable, perverted sexual obsession with his stepdaughter, an obsession that ended with him killing her. He has now been brought to justice for his crimes. No verdict brings Carla back, but I hope that her mum and the rest of her loved ones can feel some sense of justice that the man responsible for taking her future away has been brought to justice.'
