John Poulos met Valentina Trespalacios on a dating app.
A man accused of killing his girlfriend told a court in Colombian capital of Bogota that he remembers stuffing the woman’s body in a suitcase and throwing it in a garbage bin, but couldn’t recall strangling her while high on drugs. Thirty six-year-old John Poulos from Texas described the moment he woke up next to 23-year-old Valentina Trespalacios in bed next to him, with a zip tie the couple had used as sex toy tightened around her neck, as per CBS58. Trespalacios was found dead in January 2023.
“I tried to wake up Valentina, and she didn’t respond. When I initially saw her, I knew right away that something was wrong. She was very pale,” Poulos told the court.
“I just completely broke down. This was a girl that I loved,” he added.
As per New York Post, they met on a dating app in 2022 and their romance continued for nine months before he went to Colombia to meet Trespalacios and marry her.
She was 13 years younger to Poulos.
“I loved her. So, imagine killing someone that you loved,” he told the court.
The man said he did drugs with Trespalacios and used alcohol to wash it down. But on January 22, 2023, the routine gave him a bad reaction and impaired both his judgement and memory.
“I’d never done drugs before I met Valentina. My guess is what happened, I was in a drug-induced, alcohol-induced… I wasn’t completely lucid at that time, and I don’t know if I did it, I don’t know if she did it,” the 36-year-old said.
He did admit to disposing of his girlfriend’s body and running away, which he blamed on his panicked state.
Her body was discovered by a homeless man near Bogota’s main airport who alerted the police.
An autopsy found that Trespalacios died from “mechanical asphyxia,” or “strangulation”, the Post said, citing a report from The City Paper Bogota.
Poulos pleaded before the court to not send him to prison, claiming that he will be “killed there”. He was arrested from Panama while trying to board a flight to Turkey.