Lake Elsinore Man Accused Of Murdering Canyon Lake Woman, Stuffing Her In Suitcase, Due In Court Monday

Opening statements are scheduled Monday in the trial of a Lake Elsinore man charged with the 2012 murder of a Canyon Lake woman whose body was found in a suitcase.

Joseph David Dorsey, 28, has been charged by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office with one count of murder as well as allegations of a strike prior and two prison priors.

Dorsey is accused of beating, strangling and drowning Christine Stewart, 47, who was reported missing on Aug. 6, 2012.

On Aug. 8, 2012, her body was found by investigators stuffed inside a suitcase in room 115 at a Best Western Hotel in Poway. According to the prosecution, Dorsey killed Stewart at his studio apartment at 138 N. Main Street in Lake Elsinore, stuffed her body in the suitcase and drove to the hotel.

Dorsey never formally checked out of the hotel but fled instead, police allege. Best Western employees took possession of property he left behind in the hotel room, including a large rolling suitcase approximately 3 feet long and 18 inches wide and deep. Inside the suitcase, investigators found the 5'2" tall body of Stewart.

It is believed that Dorsey and Stewart were in a dating relationship at the time of the killing.

During a preliminary hearing earlier this year, Dr. Mark Fajardo, chief forensic pathologist for the Riverside County Coroner’s Office, provided testimony. He told the court Stewart’s body came to him folded up in the suitcase in the early stages of decomposition. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation with blunt force trauma to the neck, head and chest, he said.

The blows to the head and body occurred before Stewart died, the doctor explained.

In a police interrogation video played for the court at the preliminary hearing, Dorsey said something snapped in him the early morning hours of Aug. 5, 2012.

“I had her pinned to the bed by her throat,” Dorsey said.

“How long?” a detective asked.

“‘Til my [expletive] hands hurt.

“She wasn’t dead,” Dorsey continued. “She was still trying to breathe.”

According to the interrogation video, Dorsey grabbed a cell phone charger and wrapped its cord around Stewart’s neck in an attempt to further strangle her.

“It didn’t work,” Dorsey continued. Finally, he dragged Stewart to his bathtub and drowned her, he told a detective.

Dorsey said he cleaned Stewart’s body and, in an attempt to keep neighbors from seeing anything suspicious, he stuffed her in his black rolling suitcase then moved it into a 1994 Ford Explorer, hopped in the driver’s seat and headed to the hotel, then to Mexico.

The afternoon of Oct. 23, 2012, Dorsey, who is an American citizen, was arrested by Mexican law enforcement officials in Playas de Rosarito in Mexico and returned that day to the United States.

If convicted as now charged, Dorsey faces a potential sentence of 57 years to life in prison.