American, 36, accused of murdering Colombian DJ girlfriend, 23, claims he is filled with remorse and can't remember strangling her because he was so high on drugs: 'Imagine killing someone you love'

An American man on trial in Colombia for the murder of his DJ girlfriend told a judge that he stuffed her body inside a suitcase and abandoned it inside a dumpster in a state of panic before he fled the country.

John Poulos, 36, is accused of strangling Valentina Trespalacios, 23, at a home he rented in Bogotá during his visit there in January 2023.

He participated in a hearing held Wednesday inside a conference room at the jail where he is being held and said: 'I have been here for a year and I have not been able to tell my version.'

Poulos revealed that he and Trespalacios did drugs together and that he choked her with jewelry she had around her neck while they were having sex. He then used a knife to cut the accessory. 

Poulos, a divorced father-of-three from Wisconsin, told the judge that he awoke to find Trespalacios dead in the bed beside him. He admitted being high on drugs and booze and claimed that in his confusion he panicked and tried to hide her body.

The American met Trespalacios on a dating site in 2022 and went on vacation with her to Cancún before starting a long-distance relationship and flying to Bogotá to meet her family for the first time last year.

John Poulos (left) is facing charges in Bogotá, Colombia for the January 22, 2023 murder of his girlfriend Valentina Trespalacios (right). He appeared before a judge on Wednesday and confessed to stuffing her body in a suitcase and later abandoning it in a dumpster before fleeing the country

Valentina Trespalacios was beaten and strangled to death before she was stuffed into a suitcase that was dumped in a construction waste container near a park in Bogotá, Colombia, on January 22, 2023

He recalled accompanying Trespalacios to a DJ gig at a club the night of January 21, 2023 and returning to the rental during the early morning hours of January 22 to have sex.

Poulos told the judge that he did not know how the couple made it back to the apartment on the northern side of the Colombian capital city.

'I don't remember how I got back to the apartment. I remember waking up with my clothes and shoes on,' he said. 'Valentina was next to me … I was in a state induced by drugs and alcohol.'

Poulos said he woke up from bed to shower and noticed that Trespalacios unresponsive when he returned bedside.

'Saw Valentina, tried to wake her up, but she didn't respond. I was destroyed, I loved her, I had been with her for nine months. Imagine killing someone you love. The room was spinning,' he said.

An autopsy report showed that Valentina Trespalacios was strangled and beaten

A homeless man was searching through a waste container (seen here) in the Bogotá neighborhood of Los Cámbulos when he discovered the suitcase with Valentina Trespalacios' body on January 22, 2023

Poulos acknowledged he had made 'a horrible decision' upon noticing that the young woman had no vital signs.

A surveillance camera mounted near the elevator showed Poulos pushing a cart containing luggage, including the suitcase where he used to conceal Trespalacios' corpse.

'I tried to escape from her and put her in the blue suitcase,' he said. 'I regret that decision.'

A homeless man who was searching for recyclables made the gruesome discovery and alerted police.

Poulos described the period between the time he hid Trespalacios body in the suitcase and fled the country as 'being a day of panic' and that he had 'never been in a situation like that before.'

He drove away with the suitcase inside the car trunk, wondering what to do with the body of the Trespalacios, who was looking forward to marrying him.

'I thought about what to do with Valentina's body,' Poulos said. 'I headed to the airport. I passed the car rental place, saw a dumpster, stopped to see if there were any cameras. I put Valentina's body there.'

John Poulos (left) had plans of living in Colombia full time and marrying his DJ girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios (right). He was arrested in Panama on January 24, 2023, two days after her body was found inside a suitcase in a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá

Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating John Poulos for almost a year before her violent death in January 2023. The couple had met online in 2022 and later met in person in Cancún 

After dumping the suitcase in a dumpster on the south side of Bogotá, Poulos told the judge that he went to purchase a new suitcase and then returned the rental.

He headed for El Dorado International Airport, where he purchased a flight to Panamá City, with a connection to Istanbul. Once in Istanbul, he had plans of boarding another flight to Montenegro, which does not have an extradition treaty with Colombia.

However, authorities spotted him at Tocumen International Airport on January 24 and arrested him before extraditing him to Colombia.

'There is a perception in the United States that in Colombia the justice system and the police are very corrupt and I felt that I was not going to have a fair trial,' he said. 'I was still under the influence of alcohol and drugs, but I thought about saving my life, that's why I tried to escape.' 

Poulos' stunning remarks come a little over a month after he granted Colombian weekly news magazine Semana an interview and claimed that he was 'in love' with Trespalacios while adding that he had proof that would allow him to be cleared of any wrongdoing.

During a September 2023 hearing, Poulos told a judge that he was not responsible for Trespalacios' death, claimed that her family and acquittances, who were interviewed by prosecutors, had been lying all the time and wrongfully accusing him of being responsible of the gruesome killing.

Prosecutors have always alleged that Poulos had sex with Trespalacios the early morning of January 22, 2023, and then beat and choked her to death.

They have charged Poulos with aggravated feminicide and concealment of evidence and seek a 50-year prison sentence.