A jury has retired in the trial of a 24-year-old man accused of murdering a teenager whose body was hidden in a clingfilm-wrapped wardrobe for more than a fortnight.
Ashley Foster has admitted preventing the decent and lawful burial of Megan Bills but denies murdering her in his room at a hostel in Brierley Hill, West Midlands.
A seven-day trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court has heard that Foster was released from prison three days before 17-year-old Megan was allegedly strangled during what the prosecution say was a violent sexual attack.
Ashley Foster is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court (Rui Vieira/PA)
Foster, the Crown claim, left Megan’s body in his room and locked the door behind him after killing her using a shirt as a ligature on Easter Sunday last year.
Staff at the Highgate Road hostel found Megan’s badly decomposed remains on May 4 but a post-mortem examination failed to establish the cause of her death.
The court has heard that Foster wrote a letter to his sister three days later, in which he claimed Megan had died accidentally and that he had not meant to hurt her.