A British medic wanted over the murder of a Colombian model found stuffed inside a suitcase has been arrested in Ecuador.
The body of Natalia Villalba Angarita, a 36-year-old model from Cúcuta, in northern Colombia, was found by cleansing staff after they entered her seventh-floor apartment within the capital, Bogotá, after the rental period ended on June 22.
With the shower still running, a gray suitcase was discovered in the lavatory, containing the model’s stays.
Matthew Foster-Smith had been named locally as the person police and prosecutors desired to query over Angarita’s violent death.
The 46-year-old from Poole, Dorset, previously jailed twice within the UK for stalking and banned from practising as a health care provider in Britain, insisted he was innocent hours before he was detained, using the World Cup as an alibi.
He told The Sun after leaving Colombia a day before her body was found on Monday: ‘I used to be watching England versus Croatia on an enormous screen in an Irish bar, so it wasn’t me.’
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Foster-Smith claimed that, after the match, he went to the shopping centre for a ‘mooch about’ before buying an ice cream and going back to the bar later to look at one other game.
‘I didn’t leave with anyone and went to bed myself at about 11pm local time.’
Overnight, Colombian prosecutors confirmed his arrest as they claimed he had beaten his victim to death before attempting to conceal his alleged horrific crime, saying: ‘Pursuant to an arrest warrant obtained by a prosecutor from the Bogotá Sectional Office, and following the difficulty of an Interpol Red Notice, Ecuador’s National Police apprehended a British citizen at Quito International Airport.
‘He’s alleged to be accountable for the death of a 36-year-old woman on June 18 in an apartment positioned within the Chico neighbourhood of northern Bogota.
‘Evidence obtained by the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) indicates that he allegedly entered the apartment where the victim was alone, physically assaulted her until she died, and manipulated the body to position it inside a suitcase.
‘He then carried out various actions geared toward concealing what had happened, altering the crime scene, and fleeing the situation.’
Their statement added that ‘the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia will perform the crucial procedures to make sure that the foreign national is placed at its disposal and prosecuted in Colombia for the crimes of aggravated femicide and concealment, alteration, or destruction of fabric evidence’.
‘His location was made possible due to the joint efforts of the Attorney General’s Office, @MigracionCol, @SeguridadBOG, Interpol Colombia, and the authorities of Ecuador,’ it concluded, with one well-placed source telling Colombian press that Foster-Smith’s phone calls were traced as he tried to purchase a ticket to Europe.
Prosecutors named the arrested man (who was pictured wearing shorts and a baseball cap when he was held at Quito International Airport) as Foster Martinson of their statement for reasons that weren’t immediately clear this morning.
Angarita’s grieving mother, Claudia, said earlier this week that she became concerned after her daughter stopped taking her calls last Thursday, the identical day Foster-Smith was reportedly seen leaving the apartment block after entering hers the day prior to this.
CCTV cameras reportedly recorded Foster-Smith taking bedsheets to a laundry room within the constructing before exiting.
‘My daughter had been living in Bogota for 17 years,’ said Claudia, adding that they spoke ‘on a regular basis’, but her phone is now still missing.
‘Natalia told me she had an organization and worked doing that. I don’t know what it was exactly, and I’m waiting to discuss with certainly one of her best friends, so she gives me more details about what she was doing work-wise.’
Angarita’s body has not yet been released to her family.
‘All we wish is for the reality to come back out.’
Investigators say Angarita initially checked into her apartment between June 3 and seven with a person from Texas before subsequently extending her stay for an additional fortnight until June 21.
Foster-Smith left Colombia on Sunday, June 21, via the Rumichaca International Bridge, which is a bustling border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador.
In 2020, the murder suspect was jailed for 18 months within the UK after stalking an ex and posting revenge porn online. He denied all of the allegations against him when he was arrested in June that 12 months, but later pleaded guilty.
After his release, he began stalking one other woman in her 40s by hanging around outside her workplace and engineering ‘likelihood’ meetings along with her in public.
Dorset Police publicly warned people to not approach Foster-Smith and to call 999 in the event that they saw him after he was charged with stalking in September 2024 but skipped bail and went on the run for a month.
The search was called off in October 2024 after he was tracked right down to London and re-arrested.
In October last 12 months, Foster-Smith was handed a brand new prison sentence at Bournemouth Crown Court of two years and two months.
Detective Constable Thomas Norman said on the time that his second victim ‘continued to live in fear’ and her life had been ‘destroyed’ by her convicted stalker’s behaviour.
Now, if convicted of the murder of Angarita, he’s more likely to face a charge of aggravated femicide, which carries a jail sentence in Colombia of between 40 and 50 years.
A Colombian foundation assisting the families of femicide victims called Justicia Para Todos, which in English translates to Justice For All, said before Foster-Smith was arrested: ‘We reject the violent death of Natalia Villalba, found on June 22 in an apartment in northern Bogota.
‘Behind every statistic there’s a life, a story, and a family that today demands answers.
‘We call on the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation to conduct an intensive, prompt investigation with a gender perspective.’
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