'For some sick reason, his desires were more important than her life': Friend of teen murdered by stepdad speaks outside court
Nathan Owen may spend the rest of his life behind bars after sexually assaulting and murdering his stepdaughter, Carla Georgescu.
The friend of a murdered University of Lancashire student has described her killer as "narcissistic".
Jennifer Louise Kirkham, 19, described watching convicted killer Nathan Owen as he appeared in Preston Crown Court today (October 23).
The 34-year-old from Hartlepool was today sentenced to life in prison after murdering his 19-year-old stepdaughter Carla Georgescu, who he had long harboured a sickening sexual obsession with.
In February, CCTV footage caught Owens being let in to her student accommodation, Ribble Hall, at around 4am.
He had told Carla he was looking for a wallet he and her mother Janina had left behind while visiting over the weekend.
He followed Carla upstairs and disappeared from view for an hour and a half.
During this time, he subjected her to a violent sexual assault before killing her in her bedroom.
He then arranged her body to appear as though she had taken her own life.
After fleeing the scene back to Hartlepool, where mother Janina slept unaware, he disposed of some of the evidence of his crime: sheets containing Carla's DNA; a pair of her socks; and a used dildo.
Carla’s body was found by campus security the next day, on her 20th birthday, after her mother became worried she hadn't answered her phone calls.
Owens was arrested two days later. Yesterday (October 22), a jury unanimously found him guilty of killing Carla.
He was today sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 35 years, with concurrent sentences for wounding and the making of indecent images of a child.
Such images, the court heard, included pictures of Carla as a toddler with Owens' penis superimposed near her open mouth.
He had also created a life-sized “effigy” of her, which he had clothed in her nightdress, and filmed himself having sex with her childhood toys.
Speaking outside court, Kirkham - who was a friend and former flatmate of Carla - told PA Media his response to the proceedings had left her filled with "rage".
She said: “Every time I looked at him he was smiling or just looking bored.
“He laughed when he heard the guilty verdict. He actually laughed quietly to himself like it was some inside joke… the rage that I felt.
“He was supposed to look after her. He stood up to take the role of a father and he didn’t because for some sick, twisted reason his desires were more important than her life.
“I will never understand the cruelty and twisted nature of somebody who could do something like that.”
During the sentencing, Judge Mr Justice Jacobs described Owens as “despicable”.
Of Carla, he said: “The evidence at the trial of her mother, friends and lecturers at university described a young woman who was down to Earth, with a good sense of humour, who was passionate about psychology that she was studying at university, and was polite, kind, intelligent, articulate, and lovely with a very gentle way.
“She was a very talented artist, and had completed the first draft of a book which she had also illustrated.
“Her achievements in her young life were impressive. She had arrived with her mother from Romania when she was around 12 in 2018, and worked hard, did well at school, and gained a place at university, where she was also doing very well.
“Everything suggests that she would have gone on to make a great deal of her life. No words of mine can convey the horrific and almost unimaginable impact of the events of that night on her mother.”