Wife of Texas man accused of killing his Colombian DJ girlfriend says marriage was ‘abusive’

The estranged wife of the Texas man who is accused of strangling to death his Colombian DJ girlfriend has revealed that she was forced to file for divorce to get out of an ‘abusive’ marriage.

In a statement provided by her attorney to CBS TV affiliate WDJT in Milwaukee on Thursday, Ashley Poulos broke her silence, saying she was “deeply saddened” by the death of Valentina Trespalacios, who was allegedly killed by John Poulos in the capital. Colombian from Bogota. in January.

Ashley said the couple married in 2009 and had ‘three incredible children’, including their only child who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of four and was a guest of former House Speaker Paul Ryan at the State of the Union leadership in 2018.

However, she acknowledged that the marriage soured three years later and that John walked out on the family and left them bankrupt just before she filed for divorce.

John Poulos is caught on camera placing the suitcase containing Valentina Trespalacios in the trunk of a car on January 22 before leaving the luggage bag in a dumpster in Bogotá, Colombia.

John Poulos (pictured) was detained in Panama on January 24, moments before boarding a flight to Turkey and then connecting to Montenegro.

Valentina Trespalacios, a DJ in Bogotá, Colombia, was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend from Texas, John Poulos. Her body was found in a suitcase that Poulos allegedly threw into a dumpster on January 22, the same day he bought a flight to flee Colombia to Panama.

“The relationship between John and I was abusive, which led me to file for divorce in 2021. Shortly before filing for divorce, John transferred our entire marital estate to an offshore trust, leaving the family with nothing,” she said. .

According to Ashley, John later left the United States and lived in Cyprus, Turkey, and Ukraine, among other European nations. Not long ago she found out that he had been traveling to Colombia on vacation and was living in Texas.

She added that John abandoned his children and has not seen them in person since he moved from his home in Franklin, Wisconsin, in January 2021.

“Her actions have led to a terrible divorce proceeding that is still ongoing. John has represented himself as a ‘sovereign citizen’ throughout the divorce proceedings without incurring legal fees, but he caused me to incur thousands of dollars in attorney fees and guardians ad litem,’ he said. “Even though he was ordered to pay alimony, he has refused to do so.”

An autopsy report showed Colombian DJ Valentina Trespalacios was strangled and beaten

Still image from the night of January 21 when Valentina Trespalacios (center) was last seen alive before her boyfriend, John Poulos (right), allegedly beat and strangled her to death.

John Poulos next to a supermarket cart that contained a suitcase with the body of his deceased girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios. He covered the suitcase with a blanket to cover the 21-year-old’s head, which was sticking out of the luggage bag.

Poulos and his wife Ashley accompanied their son Jackson, who was six years old at the time, to the House of Representatives for former President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018.

On Monday, the judge in charge of the couple’s divorce proceedings signed a warrant for John’s arrest.

“While I was aware that John was at Columbia for the past few months, through social media posts, I was unaware of this double life that he was leading,” Ashley said. “I am deeply sorry for the family of Valentina Trespalacios and for all those involved in this tragedy.”

Poulos, who is in custody in Colombia, was ordered into pretrial detention by a judge on Thursday afternoon.

He is charged with femicide and concealment of evidence.

John and Ashley Poulos with their three children. The couple is currently in the process of getting a divorce, which Ashley filed in 2021 because she wanted out of an ‘abusive’ marriage.

Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating her boyfriend John Poulos for eight months before his violent death.

“My client had a special relationship with the victim, he loved her and wanted to settle down with her,” said Poulos’ attorney, Juan Falla. ‘My client did not come to Bogotá to murder someone, he came to be with someone he loved.’

Poulos traveled to Bogotá on January 19 as part of his plans to live with Trespalacios. He had been dating her for about eight months and had plans to marry her.

He had allegedly told her that he had rented a long-term apartment for them to live in north Bogotá and picked her up from her mother’s condominium on January 20.

However, the marriage plans took a left turn during the visit after Poulos had sex with Trespalacios and then beat and choked to death in the apartment in the early morning of January 22.

One of John Poulos’ mugshots shows him to have a large scratch on the left side of his face, perhaps a sign that his girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios, fought for her life before she was killed.

The Turkish Airlines ticket purchased by John Poulos to travel from Panama City, Panama, to Istanbul, Turkey, on January 24. The 35-year-old Texan also had a ticket to Montenegro – the country does not have an extradition treaty with Colombia.

A homeless man was looking in a garbage container in the Bogotá neighborhood of Los Cámbulos when he found the suitcase with the body of Valentina Trespalacios.

A surveillance camera near the apartment showed Poulos pushing a grocery cart with bags of luggage, including one that had Trespalacios’s body stuffed inside and covered with a blanket because his head was sticking out.

Additional footage captured Poulos placing the trolley next to his rental Volkswagen Voyage and struggling to collect the luggage before it could be placed in the trunk.

He then drove south to Bogotá, where he dumped his suitcase in a dumpster and headed to El Dorado International Airport to escape the country on a flight to Panama City, Panama. A homeless man looking for recyclable materials made the gruesome discovery of Trespalacios’s body.