TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Photos recently obtained by NBC Miami appear to show Courtney Clenney covered in bruises after she killed her boyfriend back in April.
According to the report, the photos were taken by Clenney’s mother a few days after the fatal confrontation.
The OnlyFans model—who goes by Courtney Tailor on social media, and has more than 2 million followers on her Instagram account—was arrested and charged with second-degree murder with a deadly weapon in the death of Chrsitian Obumseli.
Clenney’s lawyers insist she was a victim of domestic violence, and say the photos show she acted in self-defense after Obumseli attacked her.
Two days before the stabbing, police responded to a domestic disturbance at the couple’s Miami condo. In the body camera video, Clenney is heard telling officers she wants to file a restraining order against her boyfriend.
“I want a restraining order against Christian Obumseli. No, I’m serious,” she says in the video. “I have not always been the victim but right now I’m a freakin’ victim, I’m scared to walk my dogs.”
Her attorney, Frank Prieto, said the video shows his client had sought help “from an abusive and violent relationship.”
“It appears that the responding officers could have handled Courtney’s appeals for assistance with more sensitivity and an understanding that many victims of domestic violence are hesitant to come forward and have the police arrest their abuser,” Prieto said in a statement.
But Miami-Dade prosecutors said the two had been “involved in an extremely tempestuous and combative relationship,” and labeled Clenney as the aggressor. They released video showing Clenney attacking Obumseli in an elevator in late February.
“It certainly appears that the defendant was aggressively attacking Christian,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said.
NBC Miami reports Obumseli documented some of the outbursts in a series of audio recordings, in which Clenney is heard screaming at him and using racial slurs.
Texts between the couple were also made public. In one exchange, Obumseli recounted how Clenney stabbed him in the leg, and told her he “couldn’t f—ing walk.”
“Is love going to kill me?” Obumseli wrote. “February was the worst month I had so far. I got cheated on. I got called that word again. I got slapped in my stitches that has re-opened multiple times and it’s not healing fast enough.”
Clenney was extradited from Hawaii to Florida and remains in a Miami jail awaiting trial. She is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a hearing that will determine whether she is eligible to bond out.