A Texas man is accused of killing his girlfriend, a popular DJ in Colombia, and stuffing her body inside a suitcase before trying to flee the country.
The body of Valentina Trespalacios, 23, was found in a blue suitcase wrapped with tape and thrown into a dumpster last week near an airport in Colombia’s capital city of Bogota, the New York Post reported.
It was determined Trespalacios, who was a popular DJ with 16,000 followers on Instagram, was killed by "mechanical asphyxia" or "strangulation."
John Nelson Poulos, the 35-year-old boyfriend of Trespalacios who had met her on a dating app last year, left Colombia for Panama days before her body turned up. He was arrested Jan. 24 as he was about to board a flight to Montenegro, a country that does not have an extradition agreement with Colombia or the United States.
Poulos, who is said to be married with three kids, reportedly told police he was fleeing the country to escape from a drug cartel and says the cartel is responsible or the death of Trespalacios.
In his mugshot, a visible scratch can be seen on Polulos' face, and El Pais reported that Trespalacios' family said he was "jealous and controlling" and hired a private investigator to track her movements last year.
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Poulos has been charged with aggravated femicide.
"He was the one who hurt my daughter, and he doesn't deserve to be around like if nothing happened. I want justice done," Laura Hidalgo, Trespalacios' mother, said, according to Daily Mail.
"It is not fair that a foreigner comes to excite a Colombian girl and ends up like this. I hope this case does not go unpunished. He was the last person to see her alive, and he didn't have to hurt her."
