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Surveillance video footage have revealed a Colombian DJ’s last moment alive a day before she was allegedly beaten and strangled by her boyfriend from Texas, who is reportedly married with three children.
Footage shows Valentina Trespalacios, 23, stepping out of a taxi with John Poulos, 35, the early morning of Saturday, a day before she was found stuffed inside a taped and locked suitcase that was abandoned in a dumpster in the south side of Bogotá.
Trespalacios’ body was found in a luggage bag Sunday around 2pm by a homeless man who was searching for recyclables.
A security camera picked up Trespalacios holding Poulos’ hand as she walked down a hallway before she approached the DJ booth for her set at Nexxus nightclub.
The Colombian young woman would greet the DJ and several other people who were behind the turntable while Poulos’ stood in the background.
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 Tuesday, two days after her body was found inside a suitcase in a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá. Poulos is awaiting his extradition to Colombia
Valentina Trespalacios (right) behind the turntable Saturday, a day before she was found dead inside a suitcase
Valentina Trespalacios’ body was found inside a blue suitcase (pictured) that was tossed inside a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá
Valentina Trespalacios escorts her boyfriend, John Poulos, at Nexxus bar before she stepped into the DJ booth one last time early Saturday morning, a day before she was found dead inside a suitcase that was left in a dumpster
Valentina Trespalacios worked her last DJ gig early Saturday morning in Bogotá
Trespalacios finished her set shortly before 5am and then could be seen leaving the office of the nightclub’s owner while Poulos was in the bathroom.
Her friends told local news outlets that the couple took a taxi that was ordered through a ride share app and headed to the apartment in the north side of the capital city that Poulos had rented out where they had moved into Friday.
Poulos was arrested Tuesday night at Tocumen International Airport in Panamá City, Panamá, just moments before he was about to board a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, Turkey. He also had a ticket for a connecting flight from Istanbul to Montenegro – where there is no extradition treaty with Colombia.
As part of an attempt to throw Colombia’s international manhunt, Poulos had also purchased a flight from Panamá City to São Paulo, Brazil. All of the tickets were purchased with cash as a way not to leave any evidence.
Surveillance camera showed Valentina Trespalacios (in the middle of the circle) and her boyfriend, John Poulos (right side of the circle), entering Nexxus bar in Bogotá, where she worked her last DJ gig early Saturday morning before she was found dead the next day
A mugshot released by Panama’s immigration agency shows Poulos with a scratch on the left side of his face, a possible indication that Trespalacios attacked him while she was being beaten.
The Wisconsin native, who according to the Colombian press is married with three children, told authorities that he had fled to Panamá because the Medellín Cartel wanted to kill him.
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Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating her boyfriend, John Poulos, for eight months. It has been revealed that he is a father of three children and also married in the United States
John Poulos (pictured) told authorities he fled from Colombia to Panamá because the Medellín Cartel wanted to kill him and also blamed the criminal organization for the murder of his Colombian DJ girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios
A homeless man was searching through a waster container in the Bogotá neighborhood of Los Cámbulos when he discovered the suitcase with Valentina Trespalacios’ body
In addition, Poulos told authorities that the cartel was behind Trespalacios’ murder.
According to El Tiempo newspaper, Trespalacios’ family said Poulos had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mexico-based drug cartel that was founded by jailed drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.
High-ranking Colombian law enforcement agents flew to Panamá City on Wednesday afternoon after a court granted the Office of the Attorney General a request for Poulos’ extradition in connection to Trespalacios’ homicide.
Poulos was handed over to Colombian authorities late Wednesday and taken back to the South American country.
In the copy of the arrest warrant obtained by El Tiempo, Colombian authorities identify Poulos as the ‘alleged perpetrator of causing the violent death of Valentina Trespalacios Hidalgo, who was found in a blue travel suitcase inside a garbage container in the town of Fontibón.’
Victoria Jiménez, a hairstylist, told DailyMail.com that Trespalacios had met Poulos via an online dating app and that he had planned to travel to Colombia in February to settle down there as part of his plans to marry her close friend.
An autopsy report showed that Colombian DJ Valentina Trespalacios was strangled and beaten
One of the mugshot of John Poulos shows that he has a scratch on the left side of his face, perhaps a sign that his girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios, fought for her life before she was killed
Turkish Airlines ticket purchased by John Poulos to travel from Panamá City, Panamá, to Istanbul, Turkey. The 35-year-old from Texas also had a connecting flight to Montenegro
Laura Hidalgo said her daughter had been dating Poulos for eight months. She said that he had become jealous of her daughter and that he had hired a private investigator to follow her around.
‘He was the one who hurt my daughter and he doesn’t deserve to be around like if nothing happened. I want justice done,’ Hidalgo told Semana news magazine. ‘It is not fair that a foreigner comes to excite a Colombian girl and ends up like this. I hope this case does not go unpunished. He was the last person to see her alive and he didn’t have to hurt her.’
Noticias Caracol reported that Poulos had traveled three times to Colombia in 2022. In May, he visited for one day and then traveled with Trespalacios to Cancún, Mexico.
Bogotá security chief, Aníbal Fernández, told La FM that authorities were looking into the possibility that a second male may have been involved in the gruesome crime.
