Killer faces life term for brutal attack on his Latvian girlfriend

Jevgenni Matjuhha, 23, fled the UK after strangling Nadija Ondzule, 36, at the home they shared in Oddfellows Street, Mirfield, near Dewsbury, in January.

He was later brought back from Estonia under a European arrest warrant to face trial and was yesterday unanimously found guilty by a jury at Leeds Crown Court of her murder.

Matjuhha had admitted manslaughter but denied the murder on January 20. The jury took just over an hour to reach their verdict, however, rejecting his claims he had lost his self control.

Mr Justice Foskett said he would sentence him possibly later this week.

The court heard the couple met through an internet dating website and he had moved to her flat from London in March last year.

A friend had told the court that at first it was all romantic between them, “flowers and poems”, but by January she was complaining because he was not working a lot of the time and she was supporting him.

She became pregnant and had an abortion just two days before her violent death.

The prosecution claimed Matjuhha killed Ms Ondzule in anger possibly because she told him to leave. She had recently told a work colleague she intended to end the relationship and had asked him to help find Matjuhha another place to live.

On the night of January 20, Matjuhha left work early and was waiting at their flat when she got home from her job, manufacturing blinds.

He maintained he had not known about the abortion but had suspected what she had done and wanted to confront her about it.

Medical evidence showed she had probably been punched in the face before she was strangled.

Matjuhha had described in evidence having shown her body to a friend using a webcam, telling the court he did so because he was panicking and wanted advice what to do. But the friend hung up on him.

Having moved her body onto the bed and covered it, he left a note in Russian saying he loved her and would not be able to live with the sin of what he had done.

But the jury heard that on the same evening he was looking on the internet for the price of prostitutes in Amsterdam.

He withdrew hundreds of pounds in cash and booked a flight to Amsterdam the next day on Ms Ondzule’s bank cards, as well as buying time for himself by lying to her work colleagues not to expect her in because she had to go unexpectedly home to Riga.

In the days that followed he used her SIM card in his phone to continue his lies which included telling her son and mother that she could not get in touch because she was having an operation in hospital.

From Amsterdam, Matjuhha travelled to the Ukraine and then on to Estonia where he ended up in hospital with hypothermia after taking an overdose.

The jury heard prior to that, his name had appeared on a website entry looking for a new girlfriend who spoke Russian.

Matjuhha maintained in evidence that was not created by him but a friend using his details.

The body of Miss Ondzule, who had a teenage son, was only discovered in the flat on February 1 after Matjuhha phoned a friend of hers telling her what he had done.

Matjuhha had told the jury he was wracked with guilt and had gone to Amsterdam looking for euthanasia, but found it was not available to him.