Colchester murder: Man convicted of killing wife in kitchen

Ertan Ersoy was convicted of murdering Dr Antonella Castelvedere

A man has been found guilty of murdering his university lecturer wife in what jurors were told was an act of "anger and jealousy".

Dr Antonella Castelvedere, 52, was found stabbed to death on the couple's kitchen floor in Colchester in 2022.

Ertan Ersoy, 51, of Wickham Road, was told he would receive a life jail term when sentenced on Friday.

Prosecutors said the pair had a "volatile, unstable and rocky" relationship.

Ersoy, also a university lecturer, admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter, but prosecutors did not accept his plea, and the jury gave a unanimous verdict of guilty on the one count of murder at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Dr Antonella Castelvedere, an English academic at the University of Suffolk, was stabbed to death last June

Dr Castelvedere, who was an English and creative writing academic at the University of Suffolk in Ipswich, wrote in a note in her phone "I fear for my life" a day before her murder.

The defendant claimed his wife stabbed him during the incident, but prosecutors said there was "no independent evidence" that Dr Castelvedere caused those injuries.

A forensic psychiatrist told the court Ersoy was "obsessed" by the idea his wife was having an affair and jurors were told he checked her emails and placed a listening device in the home.

She was found with 15 stab injuries to her face, neck, upper chest and hands on 1 June 2022.

In a statement issued after the verdict, the family thanked Essex Police for its investigation and added: "Thanks for the respect shown towards Antonella, respect that Antonella did not have from her husband, and for all the people involved, and the delicacy with which they communicated to us the developments of this tragic story."