Caretaker ‘murdered missing woman, 24, then dumped body in bin where she was incinerated’
A CARETAKER murdered a missing woman then dumped her body in a bin where she was incinerated, a court heard.
Maureen Gitau, 24, was last seen leaving her home in Deptford, South East London, on December 5.
She was reported missing by her family five days later with Mark Moodie accused of murdering her.
Woolwich Crown Court was told Moodie took Maureen to a block of flats where he worked but she never left the building alive.
Once there, the 55-year-old allegedly killed Maureen, put her in a bin and covered her body in rubbish.
Jurors heard Moodie was seen moving a large communal waste bin around the basement of Richmond House in Deptford.
The rubbish was collected a few days later and taken to a processing plant where prosecutors believe Maureen’s body would have been “incinerated very quickly”.
Despite a huge search, her body has never been found, the court heard.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said: “The prosecution case is that Maureen Gitau never left that building alive and therefore, on the face of it, simply vanished into thin air… in a quite horrifyingly literal way.
“In a nutshell, the defendant must have murdered Maureen Gitau that night and disposed of her body in the rubbish bin, disposed of her mobile telephone and made false statements to the police about her movements and his knowledge of her whereabouts, in order to cover up his crime.”
The court heard Mauren worked with Moodie as a cleaner at the Oval cricket ground in summer last year.
They were described as being “more than just work colleagues” and kept in touch almost daily between July and September.
But between September and her disappearance, Maureen and Moodie were in contact far less frequently, it was said.
Moodie denies murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice.
The trial continues.