A man accused of killing his girlfriend and then stuffing her body into a suitcase last August was found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder Thursday.
Joseph David Dorsey, 28, of Lake Elsinore, is charged with killing his girlfriend, Christine Stewart, 47.
On August 8, 2012, Stewart’s body was found stuffed in a three-foot-long rolling suitcase at a Best Western hotel on Poway Road. Investigators believed she had been killed somewhere else, and then brought back to the hotel.
The couple checked into the hotel on Aug. 8 but never checked out. The suitcase holding Stewart's body was left behind in the room and later found by detectives.
Stewart's official cause of death was strangulation.
Stewart – of Canyon Lake, Calif. -- had been reported missing a few days earlier, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Immediately, detectives named Dorsey a person of interest in Stewart’s death. The couple was seen together in Lake Elsinore the weekend before Stewart’s body was discovered in the Poway motel.
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Dorsey was arrested on October 23, 2012, by Mexican authorities and the FBI near Rosarito, Mexico, in connection with Stewart’s murder.
From here, Dorsey is scheduled to appear in court again Monday for a short trial regarding previous convictions. A sentencing date will be set that morning.
Dorsey faces up to 57 years in prison for the murder of Stewart.
