Friday, October 23, 2026
A man has been jailed for murdering his stepdaughter, who he was sexually obsessed with.
Carla Georgescu was found dead in her student accommodation on her 20th birthday, after her stepfather Nathan Owens had travelled from Hartlepool the night before to kill her.
Carla (pictured below) had her whole life ahead of her. She was described by a professional as ‘intelligent, gentle and articulate’. She was a student in Preston, studying Clinical Psychology at undergraduate, with plans for the future to take post-graduate studies in Romania. Carla had friends, in fact, she was meant to travel to Romania the day after she was found with her friend, to meet her boyfriend for the first time.
Owens took all of that away from her.
Before we tell you about Owens’ horrific crimes, we want to paint you a picture of what Carla’s life looked like in the days leading up to her death, and how Owens played the guise of a loving husband and stepfather before returning in the middle of the night to take Carla’s life.
We’ll start on the weekend before Carla’s death. On 31st January, Carla’s mum travelled from Hartlepool, where the three lived, to visit her. It was quite usual for Carla’s mum and for Owens to make the journey. For Carla’s mum, it was a chance to visit her only child, to spend some quality time together. Owens, we’re sure, played into a façade that he too was visiting Carla, as a stepfather, to be together as a family. Instead, for him, it was to fuel his depraved, one-sided, sexual obsession with his stepdaughter.
Carla and her mum spent that weekend shopping together and going out to eat. They stayed together in Carla’s halls. On the Sunday, Owens travelled to join them. They went out for dinner to celebrate Carla’s birthday.
At around 9pm on 1st February, Carla and her mum said goodbye. Neither of them knew that this would be the last time they saw each other.
For the next two days, Carla went about her daily business. CCTV shows her carrying out errands in Preston, popping into shops, treating herself to a coffee and some food. She went home, did her laundry, logged on to her laptop, and used her phone – all normal day-to-day activities for a young woman.
On the evening of 3rd November, Carla’s mum went to bed in Hartlepool thinking her daughter was safe in Preston. She left Owens downstairs, he said he was ‘nocturnal’ and stayed up all night playing video games. He often did this, so she thought nothing was untoward.
Then, at a little before one in the morning, Owens messaged Carla’s mum, who remained asleep upstairs in the same house as him, telling her that he loved her more than anything.
Less than an hour later, without waking Carla’s mum, or telling her what he was doing, Owens sent an Instagram message to Carla.
He asked if she was awake. When she replied yes, he told her that when they had come to visit, Carla’s mum had left her purse at Carla’s halls, and that they were coming to collect it before Carla went on her holidays.
This was a lie. Owens knew she hadn’t left her purse, and he knew that he was going to Carla’s flat alone. Carla didn’t know this was a lie, she thought her mum was coming to pick up her purse, with her stepdad. She didn’t know he was travelling across the country to take her life.
Carla messaged her mum about the missing purse. Her mum never saw that message, at first, because she was asleep, and later because Owens had deleted it from her phone after murdering her daughter.
Owens arrived in Preston. He didn’t park in the usual carparking space by the front of Carla’s halls, instead driving round the side streets of the city, parking up there. He walked over to Carla’s halls, carrying a blanket over his head.
Carla is captured on CCTV letting him in to her accommodation. She still thought he was there to look for her mum’s purse. This is the last time she is seen alive.
Owens followed Carla up to her room. It was there that he assaulted her, he strangled her, and he murdered her. After killing Carla, Owens staged it to look like she had taken her own life.
After the murder, Owens left alone, taking a different route, covering his face with a facemask, carrying bags filled with evidence and using Carla’s umbrella and wearing her shoes.
Despite not being parked all that far from the University, Owens took a long route back. On that route he can be seen attempting to open a large bin that was locked. When he got back to the car, he no longer had the bags he was seen carrying leaving the accommodation.
So, what had he done with the bags? In the CCTV blind spots, Owens discarded of them, but he had a modern car, a car that tracked its movements. As Owens set off from his parking space, his car showed him making several stops in the city, picking up the bags before carrying on his journey.
That data showed several stops along his route, including one on the hard shoulder of the M6. He scattered items of evidence along his journey in attempt to cover up his crimes, and to further make it look like Carla was the one responsible for her death. Later, when the areas he had stopped in were searched, we found that evidence, including Carla’s phone and evidence with both Carla’s and Owens’ DNA on them.
After killing Carla, and disposing of all this evidence, he returned home, acting like nothing had happened.
That day, Carla’s mum hadn’t heard from her, she was growing concerned, sending her multiple messages. Owens carried on as normal, even going shopping in the supermarket, holding Carla’s mum’s hand, despite having killed her child hours earlier.
By the Wednesday – Carla’s birthday, her mum still hadn’t had a response. She called the police, asking for a welfare check to be carried out, because it was so unusual for her to not hear from Carla, and because Carla had been absolutely fine the last time she saw her.
We, and staff from the university went to Carla’s room to check on her, where we sadly found her body. Because of how Owens had made the scene look, it was initially thought that Carla had taken her own life, but something about it didn’t sit right with our officers, and further enquiries were carried out where it was found there was much more to this than how Owens had made it look.
A Home Office Post Mortem examination later determined that Carla has been the victim of a horrendous assault. She had suffered at least, two heavy blows to her head, wounds to her cheek thought to be caused by a sharp object, and a number of other significant injuries and evidence of a sexual assault. The examination concluded that it was ultimately strangulation that caused Carla’s death. None of her injuries could have been self-inflicted.
Prior to this raft of evidence being discovered, local officers attended the home of Carla’s mum and Owens, to inform them of her death.
They later re-attended, again before any suspicious circumstances had been formally established, to speak to Owens (pictured below), after he had been seen on CCTV in the early hours of that morning.
He lied to those officers, telling them that that was when he had picked Carla’s mum up at around 4am and they were home before it went light. He spun this web of lies when Carla’s mum wasn’t there to counteract him, as she was upstairs asleep after learning of her daughter’s death.
Owens was clearly worried he was going to be caught out in his crimes, as he began to make internet searches after the officers left, including ‘i think the police think im guilty’.
Carla’s mum understandably wanted answers as to what had happened to her daughter. Before this became a murder investigation, she had called the mortuary, asking for details about how Carla was found. This panicked Owen, clearly, as he then told Carla’s mum that he had in fact travelled to Preston in the early hours of the morning. That was the only truthful part of that disclosure though, as he went on to tell her that Carla had asked him to go and help her tidy her room, and to bring her some incontinence pads.
None of this was done because he was remorseful of his actions, none of this was him admitting to his crimes, and none of this was out of respect or love for Carla or her mum. It was simply to continue covering his tracks.
Our detectives arrested Owens at his home in Hartlepool, on suspicion of the murder of Carla.
After Owens was arrested, we searched his devices. It was then that his sexual obsession with Carla was discovered. We found a mass of material on those devices, including covert pictures taken over a year, of Carla in their home, photos that she had no idea were being taken. These weren’t standard pictures you would take of your family – they focussed on particular parts of her body or were of
Carla just in her nightdress.
Owens had done so much more than taking photos of his stepdaughter around the house. He had obtained a normal picture of Carla as a little girl, before he knew her, then, had done something incredibly disturbing to those pictures - making it an indecent image of a child.
He had created other horrific images and videos too, using pictures of Carla as an adult, or filming himself carrying out sexual acts, one in Carla’s bedroom, with what can only be described as an effigy of Carla.
He accessed some of those photos and videos in the days before he went to visit her with her mum, before returning to murder her.
Owens was brought to custody, where he was interviewed. During those interviews all he said was a fleeting denial that he had anything to do with her death and had caused her no injury.
Following a consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, Owens, 34, of no fixed abode, formerly of Hartlepool, was charged with Murder, assault causing grievous bodily harm and intentional strangulation. He was later charged with two counts of making an indecent photograph of a child and taking an indecent photograph of a child. Carla is the victim of all of these charges.
He pleaded not guilty to the murder, which meant that Carla’s final moments and details of Owens’ crimes were played out in court. He chose not to give evidence in the trial, offering no explanation for his actions.
After a three week trial, a jury took just over three hours to unanimously find Owens guilty of all counts.
He previously admitted to the counts of making an indecent photograph of a child.
He appeared back in the dock at Preston Crown Court where he was sentenced to life in prison. He will have to serve a minimum of 35 years before he is eligible to apply for parole.