A MAN accused of murdering his former partner sent a text message to a friend in America confessing his crime, a court heard.
Andrew Pearson also had a 40 minute-plus Facetime conversation with his friend when he claims he was unconscious after saying he tried to revive Natalie Harker when she fell into a stream.
The defendant then deleted the message ‘I have killed Natalie, I’m going to hand myself in’ in an attempt to ‘save his skin’, the prosecution say.
Teesside Crown Court heard how Miss Harker had told friends she was being ‘pestered’ by her former partner and asked one to intervene if he saw her walking in the street with a man.
The 30-year-old was found dead, naked and bruised in a tent pitched by Pearson in woods at Brough with St Giles, near Catterick, in October last year.
Alistair MacDonald QC told jurors that Pearson’s claim that he was unconscious after Miss Harker fell into the stream was not true as he sent the text message 90 minutes before the emergency services were called.
He said: “At the time it was sent the defendant must have been conscious and able to think straight; that is quite contrary to the assertion he made in the 999 call that he had passed out.
“He could not have been in a passed out or unconscious state when the message was sent or when the message was deleted.”
Mobile phone data also highlighted how the defendant had been moving around in the vicinity of where Miss Harker’s body was discovered.
It also showed Pearson was capable of turning his mobile phone on and off despite his claim that he was ‘passed out or unconscious’.
A pathologist recorded that Miss Harker had bruising to her arms and neck along with signs of drowning following an initial post-mortem examination.
Earlier jurors heard how the defendant had sex with Miss Harker but it could not be confirmed whether that happened when she was dead or alive.
Mr MacDonald asked the jury: “Why would she be stopping off to have sex with a man she was no longer in a relationship with?”
Pearson, of Chestnut Court, Catterick Garrison, denies murder.
The trial, which is listed for two weeks, continues.
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