Knife killer told child that mother’s blood was only ketchup
A SOLDIER stabbed his partner to death and told one of her young children that the blood on the wall was ketchup, a court heard yesterday.
Jay Nava and Natasha Wake, 26, argued while her children slept upstairs when she found out he had been investigated by police for an alleged sexual assault.
A jury at Winchester Crown Court heard that Nava, 27, who was on leave from the Army, struck the mother-of- two before stabbing her 11 times with an eight-inch kitchen knife at her home in Harley Gardens, Bournemouth.
Such was the force of his attack, the court heard, that six of the stab wounds went completely through her torso and out of her back.
Minutes later, one young child came downstairs for a drink and saw Nava with blood on him, as well as Miss Wake’s body slumped on the floor, covered by a blanket.
The girl later told police she saw “red on the walls” and that Nava told her it was “ketchup”. He then gave her a drink of orange juice and said: “Go upstairs and don’t come back down.”
The next day Nava, of 29 Commando, Royal Artillery, based in Plymouth, took the children to his grandparents before he phoned his mother in Australia and confessed to killing Miss Wake and said he was going to kill himself. A police officer later found Nava unconscious. After he was resuscitated he said: “I want to die.”
Opening the trial, Sally Howes QC, prosecuting, described how police found Miss Wake under a duvet in a cupboard. She said: “Dried blood had matted around the nose and mouth and in her hair. The body was curled up into the foetal position.”