Man who murdered Naomi Hersi went on three-day sex and drug binge before murdering her, court hears
Jesse McDonald is on trial for the brutal murder of transgender woman Naomi Hersi
By Steve Brown
The man who murdered transgender woman Naomi Hersi went on a three-day sex and drugs binge before brutally murdering her.
Jesse McDonald, 25, is on trial for drugging Hersi before stabbing her to death with a knife and broken bottle in a hotel near Heathrow airport earlier this year.
During the trial at the Old Bailey, the jury heard that McDonald – who dropped out of the London School of Economics to deal drugs – met Hersi when he went looking for excitement online and found her profile on a website called fabswingers.com.
McDonald and Hersi reportedly spent four days together before he turned and brutally murdered her.
After killing her, he got bags and cleaning products before calling his girlfriend Natalia Darkowska, 18, and they both attempted to clean up.
Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC said: “Each was thinking only of themselves and each other – without a care for the deceased, whom they believed was unlikely, because of her lifestyle, to be missed.”
Heywood went on to tell the jury that McDonald would claim self-defence and continued: “You will not have to decide whether there was a killing or who did it.
“The first defendant, Jesse McDonald, accepts he inflicted all of the many injuries that caused the terrible, violent death she suffered.”
The prosecutor went on to say McDonald had been looking for a sexual encounter and knew that Hersi was a transgender woman, who had not undergone surgery.
Heywood added: “He was looking for something edgy, a little bit risky and possibly prepared to use drugs in the course of the experience.
“They passed time together, took drugs and had sex at her address, to which she had invited him.
“After three days of that, he took her back to his address. After a time, he drugged her, fought with her and eventually killed her, stabbing and cutting her multiple times with a broken bottle and knife and perhaps other things in order to achieve her death.
“When it was done, when she was dead, he tried to clean it up and avoid detection.”
The court heard that he then contacted others, including his girlfriend, to help with the clean-up.
Heywood said: “His girlfriend, the second defendant, travelled to him and joined in with him at this stage of the attempted clean up.
“Once she understood what had to be done, she went to buy the necessary things and tried to help and support him through it.”
The trial continues.