Man’s disturbing email after choking girlfriend to death detailed in court
A man who admits choking his girlfriend to death wrote a disturbing email afterwards that has been detailed in court.
A man who fatally strangled his girlfriend whose body was later found lying on a mattress sent a disturbing email afterwards saying “I have killed a woman”, a court has heard.
Adam Margolis’ trial for murder began in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Friday.
His lawyer Bruce Walmsley QC told the jury it was “not in dispute” that Mr Margolis caused the death of his girlfriend Mai-Yia Vang, 26, during an argument on the night of February 24, 2018.
He said the issue was whether the fatal strangulation at his Bendigo home was “conscience, voluntary, and deliberate”.
“(The death) was the result of Mr Margolis lapsing into a flashback,” he said.
Prosecutor Mark Rochford QC told the court Mr Margolis attempted suicide after the alleged murder.
The court heard he scheduled a 12-page email to three people with a seven-hour time delay, sent on February 27 after he intended to be dead.
The court heard the subject line was: “I have killed a woman and committed suicide”.
In the email he said he “blacked out to find myself on the floor with her in a chokehold”.
“Although I knew in my soul that I loved her, I was faced with two choices,” it said.
He could either have stopped and continued being insulted, or continue choking her before taking his own life, the court heard the email said.
“Her hostility (was) only increasing with almost the entire night gone,” the email said.
“I was beyond exhausted.
“I was continuously saying ‘I’m sorry’ while it happened.
“I did everything possible to minimise her suffering.”
One of the email recipients called police.
Officers went to Mr Margolis’ house to find Ms Vang’s body, lying half on a mattress and half on the floor.
The court heard Mr Margolis was in another room, pale and muttering incomprehensibly but alive.
He later told a psychologist he went into a “flashback” when he committed the fatal strangulation, Mr Rochford said.
“(He said) the deceased had intentionally induced flashbacks with the intention of him attacking her,” he said.
Ms Yang’s sister, Pa Vang, broke down crying in court on Friday as she recalled Ms Vang helping look after her children.
She said Ms Yang had told her two weeks earlier she was happy.
The court heard Mr Margolis sent messages from Ms Yang’s phone after she was dead pretending to be her, in her ‘Sisterz’ group chat on Facebook messenger.
He sent the dead woman’s sisters ‘thumbs up’ emojis and claimed she was sick.
Ms Yang was living with her sister and her sister’s husband, but she left to be with Mr Margolis about one week before the alleged murder.
She moved into his Bendigo home two weeks after they met in person for the first time, after connecting on chat website Omegle.
Within a day they were fighting, the court heard.
Mr Margolis sent text messages to her ex-boyfriend and made audio recordings of the two of them arguing, the court heard.
A week later she was dead.
The trial continues Monday.