Court hears husband killed University of Suffolk lecturer amid "anger and jealousy"

A "jealous" husband stabbed his university lecturer wife to death with a kitchen knife in their home, a court has heard.

Ertan Ersoy, 51, stabbed Dr Antonella Castelvedere "many times, causing 15 areas of sharp force injury" to her face, neck, upper chest and to both hands, prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC said.

Dr Castelvedere, 52, a lecturer at the University of Suffolk who taught an MA in English and creative writing, was found dead on the kitchen floor of the end-terrace family home in Colchester, Essex.

Mr Paxton told Ersoy's trial at Chelmsford Crown Court: "In short and simple terms, we the prosecution say it was this defendant's anger, jealousy and his failings that led to him killing his wife."

He said Ersoy, also a lecturer and teaching fellow, called emergency services and went out into the street and called for help after stabbing his wife on June 1 last year.

"He told them he thought he had killed his wife, and that she had stabbed him," said Mr Paxton.

The prosecutor said the defendant was taken to hospital and treated for "two shallow wounds to his stomach which he claimed she had caused".

He said jurors "need to be cautious about any suggestion made by the defendant that Antonella caused those two shallow wounds" and that there was "no independent evidence that she did".

Mr Paxton told the court that Ersoy, who denies murder, has admitted to manslaughter.

He said the defence will claim that Ersoy was suffering from an "abnormality of mental functioning that arose from a medical condition, depression" at the time of the stabbing.

The prosecutor said one of the stab wounds to Dr Castelvedere, on her neck, measured 15cm in length and was 7cm deep and "resulted in severe blood loss, cardiac arrest and her death".

"There was no loss of control by this defendant," he said.

"Rather this stabbing was sadly a result of the defendant's anger and jealousy towards his wife, his failings and his unhappiness in his life."

Mr Paxton said the couple, who married in 2014 and lived together with their five-year-old daughter, had a relationship that "appeared to be volatile, unstable and rocky with allegations made by this defendant that Antonella had previously been physically abusive to him".

He said Ersoy had previously placed a listening device in the family home, suspecting she may be cheating, but this "proved no such thing".

After Dr Castelvedere's death, police discovered notes that she had made on her phone, Mr Paxton said.

One of them, from August 2021, read: "Questioning where I went, I asked him not to go back to attitude of three months earlier."

Another, in October 2021, read: "Gets drunk and threatening me. Falls from stairs and breaks banister."

A third note, in December 2021, said: "Sending me links to sites on the topic of obsession with ex boyfriend."

Mr Paxton said jurors will hear evidence Ersoy was "obsessed with his wife's previous relationships".

He said that days before the killing Ersoy searched online "for the services of a private investigator".

The trial continues.

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