‘Obsessed’ man guilty of murdering stepdaughter after filming sex with effigy

‘Obsessed’ man guilty of murdering stepdaughter after filming sex with effigy Nathan Owenshas been found guilty of murdering his stepdaughter Carla Georgescu, who he was 'sexually obsessed' with, at her university halls in Preston A man killed his 19-year-old stepdaughter after harbouring a "perverted sexual obsession" with her. Nathan Owens, 34, was found guilty on Thursday of the murder of Carla Georgescu, a second-year psychology student at the University of Lancashire. Carla was found dead at her student accommodation in Victoria Street, Preston, on February 5 - her 20th birthday. Owens had subjected her to a violent sexual assault and killed her after travelling from Hartlepool the night before. He then staged the scene to appear as though Carla had taken her own life. The jury at Preston Crown Court convicted Owens of murder, assault causing grievous bodily harm and intentional strangulation after deliberating for just over three hours. As the foreman returned guilty verdicts, Owens, of Hopps Street, Hartlepool, smirked and flicked his hair. Owens previously admitted two counts of making an indecent photograph of a child, with Carla being the victim of those charges too. He will return to the dock for sentencing on Friday. The jury heard that unbeknownst to Carla or her mum, Owens had harboured a sexual obsession with the teenager. He had filmed himself having intercourse with an effigy adorned with her clothes and making other recordings of himself performing sex acts with stuffed toys. Owens had also doctored childhood photographs of her to make them indecent images and had photographed her without her knowledge in their house. The court heard 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 Janina and Carla 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. 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?" The prosecution said 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. 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." Following the conviction, Det Insp Pete Macdonald, of Lancashire Police's major investigation team, 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. "I thank the jury for returning a guilty verdict, as well as the prosecution counsel, Nicholas Lumley K.C, Adam Birkby, Barrister, my investigation team and the Crown Prosecution Service for all of their efforts to obtain justice for Carla. "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."