A man has been found guilty of killing his girlfriend and burying her in a shallow grave.
The mother of a French film producer strangled by her Estonian stuntman ex-boyfriend and buried in a shallow grave has told how she ‘watches videos just to hear her voice and her laugh.’
Kirill Belorusov, 32, who claimed to be Brad Pitt’s body double in World War Z, murdered Laureline Garcia-Bertaux, 34, before trying to hide her in the garden of her own flat in Kew, south-west London.
Belarus had sent text messages from Ms Garcia-Bertaux’s phone to her friends in a bid to cover his tracks before fleeing to Estonia. He denied murder after being arrested in the capital Tallinn under a European arrest warrant and brought back to the UK.
But a jury of seven women and five men at the Old Bailey found him guilty today after deliberating for less than two hours.
Today a victim impact statement read on behalf of Laureline’s mother Frederique Bertaux said: ‘The death of one’s own child goes against nature.
‘There is not a moment during the day I don’t think of my Laureline. I can’t touch her, I can’t kiss her anymore. I watch videos of her just to hear her voice, hear her laugh, to see how she moves.
‘I would give anything to hear her happy moments, sad moments, and to hear her say ‘mum I love you’.
‘It’s incredibly hard to begin to describe my sorrow, my heartbreak.’
Ms Bertaux’s statement went on: ‘Losing a child is like having one of your own limbs cut off – a constant pain that nothing can relieve.
‘My darling, you’re not here but you’re all around me. I love you and I will love you forever.’
Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said of Belorusov: ‘I’m entirely satisfied the defendant is not someone who believes the lies he tells.
‘He just tells them on a scale and magnitude which I have not encountered before. I do not believe he has ever had cancer. I’m entirely sure of that.’
Belarus, a self-confessed ‘a***hole’ had ‘calmly and methodically’ throttled Miss Garcia-Bertaux, 34, for four minutes in March after tormenting her with emotional abuse for months.
CCTV showed Belorusov buying a murder kit of bin bags, duct tape, plastic clogs, rubble sacks, an axe and compost from Homebase.
He wrapped her body buried it in a shallow grave in the garden of her flat in Kew and then fled to his native Estonia to try to evade arrest – only after settling down to watch porn videos in her home.
He sent text messages from Ms Garcia-Bertaux’s phone to her friends saying she was planning a ‘boob job’ or ‘lypo’ and expressing her delight at a fictitious new home.
One message said: ‘I went to see the house it’s BEAUTIFUL! And Kirill gave me another £7,000 so I’m going on a shopping spree… And he transferred another £10,000 a week ago… And he left…Housewarming party is coming real soon…So hot tub and boob lift.’
Belarus was captured on CCTV buying items including an axe and rubble sacks in Homebase to dispose of her body, jurors heard.
Belarus fled to Estonia, while Ms Garcia-Bertaux was reported missing by worried friends after she failed to turn up to work at PR firm Golin, where she was an executive assistant.
She also worked as a producer in the television and film industry and had worked with Dame Joan Collins on the 2018 short film Gerry.
