Jesse McDonald to serve at least 20 years for killing Naomi Hersi after drug binge in hotel near Heathrow

A man has been jailed for at least 20 years for murdering a transgender woman during a sex and drugs binge. Jesse McDonald, 25, contacted 36-year-old Naomi Hersi through the dating website Fabswingers.com, the Old Bailey heard.

After days together, McDonald drugged and stabbed the hospitality worker to death with a knife and a broken bottle at a hotel near Heathrow airport, where he was staying.

He hid in his room as he waited for his 18-year-old girlfriend, Natalia Darkowska, to help clean up, jurors were told. But the plan to dispose of the body was scuppered when police found the victim lying half-naked, partly covered by a rug on the bathroom floor.

Naomi Hersi was a sweet and trusting person, her family said. Photograph: @naomi_hersi/Twitter

McDonald denied murder, claiming to have acted in self-defence. He and Darkowska, from Trowbridge in Wiltshire, both denied perverting the course of justice following the killing in March.

The couple wept and embraced in the dock as they were found guilty of the charges following a trial at the Old Bailey in October. McDonald was jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years for murder with 30 months concurrent for the second offence.

The judge, Mark Dennis QC, rejected the defendant’s claims he was drugged, raped and held in a “death grip” by the victim. He pointed out his capacity for mixing up fact and fiction, saying McDonald had a complete disregard for anyone but himself.

The judge said: “This was a dreadful assault on someone who it would appear will have been in no position to respond to an attack by you using a weapon.”

In a victim impact statement, Hersi’s family described her as a sweet and trusting person who was funny and carefree. Her sister Amina, a hospital doctor, was the first to hear the news of her death while at work. Her father, Mohamed Duale, described the murder as the “ultimate injustice”. He said: “Our lives will never be the same. The grief has swallowed us up. It’s consumed us.”

McDonald’s parents, who attended the trial, sent a letter to the judge expressing their sorrow.

The trial heard how McDonald, who grew up in West Sussex, turned to dealing drugs and trading in bitcoin after dropping out of the London School of Economics. In mitigation, Michael Turner QC said McDonald had a “promising academic career” that was cut short when his drink was spiked in 2014.

On 12 March, he contacted Hersi within 45 minutes of arriving back at the Heathrow Palace hotel in Hounslow from visiting his girlfriend.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Natalia Darkowska will be sentenced at a later date. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PA

He drove to the victim’s home in Mill Hill, north-west London, where he stayed for three days before they both went back to the hotel room in Hounslow. Throughout the period, McDonald is said to have ignored his girlfriend’s increasingly frequent attempts to get in touch with him.

But on 16 March, he sent her a message saying: “Baby I been a f****** idiot.” Another read: “I love u so much. Not cheated x. Got addicted to a nasty drug I had never met before.” He then told her he had “got a big drug dealer” lying across his floor, adding: “Won’t wake up … massive black guy.”

While the defendants were cleaning up, McDonald phoned his mother and claimed that he had been chained up for days, drugged with GHB and repeatedly raped.

McDonald alleged he had stabbed Hersi up to 40 times in a frenzy, believing she was about to smother him with a pillow. His mother phoned the police after the conversation with her son. The defendant also offered his landlord a designer watch if he cleared up his room before confessing he had killed someone, jurors heard.

Ten minutes after his last call, police arrived at the property and found Hersi’s body and the murder weapon. The defendants were tracked down to a hotel in Teddington and arrested. During his police interview, McDonald continued to claim that he had been bound and raped.

Giving evidence, the defendant said he had contacted Hersi online because he was “a complete idiot”.

Darkowska will be sentenced at a later date.