Soldier stabs ex to death then tells child blood on walls is ketchup
A SOLDIER stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death before telling his daughter that the blood spattered on the walls was ketchup, a court heard yesterday.
Jay Nava is said to have had a furious argument with on-off partner Natasha Wake after she discovered he had been investigated by police for a sex assault on another woman.
Nava, 27, allegedly snapped and attacked her with an eight-inch kitchen knife. Some of the wounds were so deep they went all the way through her body.
Minutes later his young daughter, who had been with Miss Wake’s other child upstairs, came into the room after being woken by a ‘scream’.
The jury heard she saw Nava covered with blood and his victim slumped on the floor with a blanket over her.
Prosecutor Sally Howes QC said the girl, who is understood to be seven, asked for a drink and was sent away with some orange juice. She was told: ‘Go upstairs and don’t come back down.’
Miss Howes said: ‘In the morning she asked why he had a knife in his trousers and why Natasha was on the floor.
‘He said they were being silly, Natasha was asleep and it was ketchup on the walls.
‘He still had the knife in his trousers and said Natasha had gone shopping.’
Nava, who joined the Army in 2015 and was based with the Royal Artillery’s 29 Commando Regiment in Plymouth, took the children to his grandparents’ home the next morning. The prosecution claims he then made contact with his mother in Australia and confessed to the killing before saying he was going to kill himself.
Police found 26-year-old Miss Wake’s body wrapped in a duvet inside a cupboard at her home in Bournemouth.
They then found Nava at Hengistbury Head, a clifftop spot in the Dorset town.
He is said to have made eye-contact with an officer before leaping from a tree with a noose around his neck. The officer rushed over and brought the defendant down before resuscitating him.
Nava’s first words after he was stopped were: ‘I want to die.’
Nava, who denies murder, began a relationship with Miss Wake in January 2013, Winchester Crown Court heard.
Miss Wake, a bank worker, had a child with him and another from a previous relationship.
The couple had broken up by the time of her death on October 1 last year. Miss Wake had discovered that Nava had been investigated for an alleged sex attack, the jury was told.
CCTV images of him and a friend appeared on a local newspaper website after a woman complained to the police.
The pair were not arrested or charged but Miss Wake discovered what had happened after overhearing a voicemail that Nava’s friend left on his phone when they were told no action would be taken against them.
Miss Howes said Nava and his daughter had spent the week with his ex and her child but the revelation ‘completely shattered’ the atmosphere.
A ‘bitter and acrimonious’ argument broke out before the defendant allegedly stabbed her 11 times.
The court heard that Nava then left three notes at Miss Wake’s home.
One, to her mother Shelley, said: ‘I’m sorry for hurting your daughter. I’ll take my own life soon. I loved her. Why I did this is beyond me.’
The trial continues.