Churchgoer ‘kidnapped and drowned by jealous ex’
A man kidnapped his exgirlfriend and drowned her in a stream after refusing to accept their relationship was over, a court heard yesterday.
Andrew Pearson, 45, snatched devout churchgoer natalie Harker from her bicycle, dragged her to woods and held her underwater by the neck until she was dead, jurors were told.
Her naked and bruised body was discovered in a tent and a post-mortem examination found he had had sex with her – possibly after her death, it is alleged.
miss Harker had become so worried about Pearson after breaking up with him several weeks earlier that she shook when speaking of her fear of bumping into him, Teesside Crown Court was told. miss
Harker, a cleaner, asked the caretaker at the college where she worked to intervene if he saw her with a man in the street. The 30-year-old had warned Pearson in a text: ‘Don’t try to see me on my way to work or I will have to take it further and talk to the police.’ But Pearson pounced at 4.30am in October last year – when no one was around – as she cycled to start her 5am shift, jurors heard.
He dragged her to a stream next to a den in woods where he had pitched a tent, the court was told, before allegedly drowning her.
Pearson then sent a text to a friend in America, telling him: ‘Goodbye, I have killed natalie, I am going to hand myself in.’
The only other person he notified was his mother, saying miss Harker had fallen into the water by accident. His mother later called the police, who rushed to the scene.
The court heard mr Pearson told emergency service staff that miss Harker had stopped en route to work to take a walk with him in the dark by the stream and had accidentally fallen in, pulling him in with her.
He claimed he had dragged her body into his tent before passing out and waking to find her ‘purple’.
The court heard they had been together for 18 months, having met at a Tesco store where they worked.
Jobless Pearson refused to accept that their relationship was over when miss Harker broke up with him, partly because he was unable to pay his own way to join her on a short seaside holiday.
miss Harker went on her own and when she arrived back home to Colburn, north Yorkshire, she told her mother that she was going to break up with him.
But when she did, he began obsessing over his belief she was seeing a Tesco delivery driver.
Prosecutor Alistair macDonald QC said Pearson confronted the supposed love rival, named as mr Taylor, and urged him to post on Facebook that she had been stringing him along.
In fact miss Harker and mr Taylor were not a couple, with the extent of their relationship being a day trip to Whitby as friends some time in the past.
Pearson had also pestered his neighbour, telling her his break-up with miss Harker had left him ‘depressed and angry’ and that he thought she was cheating on him. He then made unwelcome advances on the neighbour and asked her on a date, the court was told.
mr macDonald showed the jury ‘sarcastic, wounding and wholly false’ posts that Pearson had written on Facebook claiming miss Harker had wronged him while he had been ‘a perfect gentleman’.
The prosecutor said she had transformed her appearance after dumping Pearson and was happier, but remained anxious about him. mr macDonald said she lost weight, ‘started looking smarter and wearing make-up’ after the split.
Pearson, of Brompton-on-Swale, north Yorkshire, denies murder and kidnap.
The case continues.
‘Pounced when no one was around’