A ‘controlling bully’ confessed in a recorded phone call to killing his girlfriend during a holiday to Peru and then burying her body at his grandmother’s house, a court has heard.
In a landmark trial being held in the UK under new domestic abuse laws, Jorge Garay is alleged to have murdered Karla Godoy because she was planning to visit her daughter in Spain where the youngster lived with her father, Ms Godoy’s ex-husband.
A jury at Maidstone Crown Court, Kent, was told a jealous Garay twice wrapped a cord around Ms Godoy’s neck and applied pressure from behind to asphyxiate her.
He then wrapped the 37-year-old’s body in blue plastic sheeting and took her on the 6km journey to his grandmother’s house in the San Benito district of the Carabayllo province of Lima where he dug a grave and buried her.
At the start of the 46-year-old Peruvian-Spanish national’s trial today, prosecutor Philip Bennetts KC said Garay later confessed to a police officer in Peru that he killed his girlfriend in an argument and had acted in self defence.
Jorge Garay (right), 46, of Hythe Street, Dartford, has been charged with the murder of 36-year-old Karla Godoy (left) in Lima, Peru
Karla Xiomara Zelaya Godoy, a Honduran-Spanish national living in London, was killed in Peru
Her family had reported her disappearance after she missed her pre-booked flight from Peru to Madrid on September 23 last year.
On the same day as speaking to police on October 12, Garay also telephoned Ms Godoy’s brother, Eric Godoy, and the conversation was partly-recorded.
Mr Bennetts said: ‘He said that he [the defendant] had killed her. He said that he had put her body in his grandmother’s house and buried her there.
‘He said that he had been jealous because she was returning to Spain because her daughter lives with her father…and that is why they argued.
‘He said she went for him and he punched her in the face and then he said he didn’t remember what happened after that.’
The court heard Garay also told the brother to ‘call police’ as he had told them the grave’s location.
The recording ended with the sound of him crying.
Garay, who lived and worked with Ms Godoy in Dartford, Kent, was arrested in London on October 15.
He had been booked to fly back from Peru on October 4 but had in fact returned three days early.
The jury heard Garay accepts killing Ms Godoy but he denies murder, claiming he acted in self-defence.
Jorge Garay (left), 46, of Dartford, has been charged with the murder of 36-year-old Karla Godoy (right) in Peru
Mr Bennetts told the jury: ‘There is no dispute that this defendant killed his then partner Karla Godoy.
‘How was she killed? Pathology demonstrates that her death was caused by asphyxiation by a cord wrapped twice around her neck and pressure being applied to the body from behind.
‘Although it’s not necessary to prove motive, the evidence that you will hear in part suggests that this defendant was a bullying, controlling and jealous man.
‘One of the factors that made him jealous was when Karla was going to see her daughter who lived with her ex-partner.
‘Karla was due to travel on September 23 to see her daughter. She did not make that journey.’
Despite the alleged murder being committed in Peru, the trial is the first to be held in the UK under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
This extends courts’ extraterritorial powers in England and Wales to try cases whereby offences have been committed overseas by someone resident in the UK.
The jury heard the couple had met in 2021 and started living together in April that year. They both worked for Pioneer FM facilities management.
Ms Godoy had been born in Honduras but later obtained Spanish citizenship having moved there in 2006. She came to the UK in December 2020.
Garay was born in Peru but also became a Spanish citizen before coming to the UK in November 2020.
On September 12 last year, they flew out of Stansted Airport to Valencia in Spain and, three days later, left Madrid for Lima.
They spent their time visiting Garay’s family as well as the ‘Lost City of the Incas’, Machu Picchu.
Mr Bennetts said Ms Godoy’s last known phone contact was with her aunt on September 23 in which she spoke of her return trip to Spain where she planned to stay for three days and see her 10-year-old daughter.
When she failed to arrive however, they reported her missing to police.
In his police interview following arrest, Garay gave a prepared statement in which he alleged his girlfriend had attacked him with a knife in a row.
Garay claimed Ms Godoy had not told her ex-husband they were in a relationship but he had seen photos of them at Machu Picchu and she was worried about not having access to her daughter.
Pictured: Peruvian police found 36-year-old Karla Godoy’s body on following a tip-off
Describing her as ‘mad and angry’, he said they had a ‘huge argument’, called each other ‘s***’ and slapped each other.
Garay told police that she then came at him with a 12in knife, slashing his arm as he tried to defend himself.
He added he feared for his life and so grabbed her arms, ran and pushed into her with ‘all his weight’.
They fell to the floor, with Garay on top. He then said ‘something crazy’ came over him and he grabbed an elastic spring as she kicked and shouted.
He then stated: ‘I shouted ‘Shut up, shut up.’ I was mad. I knew the knife had fallen from her hand and was on the floor next to her.
‘I was afraid she might grab it again. All the time she was kicking and shouting horrible things at me.
‘I can’t remember what happened at this moment, not exactly…I know I was angry and she was trying to kill me.’
Garay said he ‘panicked’ afterwards, covered Ms Godoy in a sheet and ‘put her in the garden’. He added he did not ‘trust’ the Peruvian police.
The jury was told that it takes 15 to 30 seconds for a person to lose consciousness from continuous pressure around the neck.
That pressure then has to continue for at least a minute to cause death, added Mr Bennetts.
Telling the jury that to convict Garay of murder they would have to be ‘sure’ he acted unlawfully and not in self-defence, the prosecutor said: ‘Was it him who was angry? Was it him who was jealous because his partner was returning to Spain to see her daughter who was with her ex-partner?
‘You will consider the pathology evidence – the cord wrapped twice around her neck, injuries to the back inconsistent with self-defence, we submit.
‘You will consider what he did after he killed her. That’s quite an important element of your considerations.’
But Edmund Burge KC, defending, said while Garay accepts ‘how, when and where’ Ms Godoy died, he claims the struggle started because she attacked him with a knife.
‘In responding to that attack, he defended himself. He is entitled to defend himself in the way that he did, and when he did so he didn’t intend that she would die or suffer really serious harm,’ Mr Burge told the jury.
The trial continues.
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