St. Petersburg man heads to trial in killing of ex-wife whose body hasn’t been found

Early one morning in February 2020, security cameras on a St. Petersburg home recorded some unusual activity at a house across the street.

In the videos captured on Feb. 29, a man can be seen laying a sheet or tarp into the trunk of a car parked in front of the home on the 1300 block of 81st Avenue North, in the Gateway neighborhood. Then, at about 1:37 a.m., the man drags a large object down the driveway and lifts it into the trunk.

The man, a prosecutor told a Pinellas County jury on Tuesday, was George Morariu. And the object was the body of his ex-wife, 62-year-old Andelka Morariu.

Andelka Morariu’s body was never found. But during an opening statement, Pinellas-Pasco Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Traverso laid out the evidence that she said would persuade jurors to convict George Morariu of first-degree murder.

The neighbor’s camera captured Andelka Morariu return to the home at about 7:42 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2020, and does not show her leaving. The same camera also captured what investigators determined were the sound of three gunshots.

“Within 30 minutes of getting home, she was shot and killed,” Traverso said. “Her body was drug out of her home and stuffed in the back of the trunk of her own car. Her body was disposed of and it was never found.”

Andelka’s sister filed a missing person report with the St. Petersburg Police Department on March 2 after she didn’t show up for work on Feb. 29. A patrol officer who went to the home noted George had scratches on his face.

George Morariu, 63, claimed that his ex-wife “walked off with some Hispanic guy down the street,” Traverso said.

Police executed a search warrant on the Morariu home on March 3. The house smelled of bleach, and investigators found Andelka Morariu’s blood and small fragments of her bone in a bedroom in which prosecutors say George Morariu shot her, as well as her blood under a tile near a door, on the ground outside the home and inside the trunk of Andelka Morariu’s white Hyundai.

Investigators also found on a nightstand a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol owned by George Morariu. The gun had his ex-wife’s blood inside it, suggesting she was shot at close range.

In a Publix grocery bag in the trunk of George Morariu’s car, investigators found a piece of Andelka’s cranium.

Police searched for Andelka’s body with a helicopter, divers and dogs. When a witness reported seeing an alligator with what might have been a person, investigators trapped and killed the animal to search the contents of its stomach. Nothing was found.

The medical examiner concluded that Andelka Morariu was dead because she couldn’t live without that piece of her skull without immediate medical care, and that her death was a homicide by gunshot wound or blunt force trauma.

Police arrested George Morariu on April 3, 2020, on a second-degree murder charge, but prosecutors upped it to first-degree murder.

Traverso, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Constantine, said witness testimony would show the relationship was “toxic,” with lots of arguing, and that George Morariu was controlling. They eventually divorced, but she ultimately moved back in with Morariu before she was killed.

Traverso called George Morariu “delusional” and “obsessed” and said he “concocted in his mind a story that she was having an affair with a co-worker.” In the days before her death, Traverso said, Morariu repeatedly called his ex-wife’s employer and told lies that she was having sex in the bathroom with men at work. He also used a tracking device to keep tabs on her.

“He was obsessed with this delusion and he wouldn’t let it go,” Traverso said.

After his ex-wife disappeared, George Morariu was more concerned about selling the house and a condo the couple owned than her whereabouts, she said.

George Morariu, who is representing himself, didn’t address the facts of the case in his opening statement, which lasted less than three minutes. Instead, he said that the attorney he’d hired to represent him took thousands of dollars from him but did little work on the case and then refused to take the case to trial.

“So I had no other option but to dismiss him and represent myself,” he said. “It was the only way to bring this case to trial.”

Morariu, who has been in jail since his arrest, said his ability to defend himself “is minimal at best.”

“My only other option was to let the state delay this trial for as long as they wanted to,” he said. “I pray that I have what it takes to go through this alone without counsel.”

As Morariu spoke, an assistant public defender who is acting as his standby counsel sat to the side of the defense table.

Prosecutors on Tuesday played the audio with the gunshots and then the video showing the man dragging something to the car as some members of Andelka Morariu’s family watched from the gallery. When the gunshots rang out in the courtroom, her sister, Zeljka Brecak, covered her mouth with her hands as another family member comforted her with an embrace.

If convicted, Morariu faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The trial is expected to last through this week.