Crime & Justice

Video Shows Instagram Influencer Accused of Murder Telling Cops Boyfriend Stalked Her

PRELUDE TO VIOLENCE

Courtney Clenney is accused of murdering her boyfriend in their luxury condo after abusing him. Body-cam footage shows what happened two days earlier.

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Miami Police

Two days before Courtney Clenney allegedly stabbed her boyfriend in the heart during a domestic dispute, the OnlyFans model told police in the lobby of her luxury Miami high-rise that he was “stalking” her.

“I broke up with him…he slept in my elevator room. Which is stalking, but I wouldn’t have ever called the police,” Clenney told a Miami Police officer on April 1 in body-camera footage, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. “He wouldn’t leave me alone.… I want a restraining order.”

The Miami State Attorney’s Office alleges that on April 3, the 26-year-old Instagram influencer murdered 27-year-old Christian Obumseli in their 22nd floor condo. In August, Clenney was charged with second-degree murder after she allegedly told police that she had thrown a knife at Obsumseli when he was 10 feet away during an argument. An autopsy report later revealed, however, that Obumseli suffered a “stab wound to the chest…and that the knife punctured the subclavian artery.”

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“The violent and toxic two-year relationship of Christian Obumseli and Courtney Clenney did not have to end in tragedy with Christian’s murder as a victim of domestic violence,” Miami State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle in a press conference announcing the model’s arrest.

Clenney’s defense attorney, Frank Prieto, previously told The Daily Beast that his client acted out of self-defense. On Tuesday, Prieto said that “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.”

Neither Miami Police nor Obumseli’s family immediately responded to requests for comment. The video was first reported on by WSVN, a local Fox affiliate in Miami.

The April body-camera footage provides more context about what police have described as a tortured and violent relationship. Prosecutors say arguments between the pair were so extreme that One Paraiso building management was “moving toward legal action to evict” them from the luxury complex. According to an arrest warrant obtained by The Daily Beast, police were aware of “multiple incidents of domestic violence from both sides” dating to November 2021. Among them was a February 2022 incident in the building’s elevator, where Clenney is seen striking Obumseli—who, in turn, is seen trying to block his girlfriend’s attacks while she persists.

On April 1, police were again called to the Miami condo building after a domestic dispute.

In the footage, a building security guard is heard saying that he called authorities after Obumseli had been “charging toward [Clenney]” in the lobby before trying to get into the elevator.

“He was down here for a long period of time,” the security guard tells officers in the footage. “I said enough is enough, the police need to be called. She said she didn’t want the police to be called.”

Wearing a bikini-top and pants, Clenney looks visibly shaken as she tells authorities that Obumseli was sleeping outside her apartment even though she had broken up with him. She says that she was so nervous about running into him that she had spent the whole day inside her unit—before eventually going outside to walk her dogs.

“I want a restraining order against Christian Obumseli,” Clenney says on the bodycam video. “Right now I have not always been the victim, but right now I am the victim. I am scared of him.”

When officers ask Clenney if Obumseli was physically violent against her, she responds: “Yes, that’s not really a concern. He just stalks, stalks, stalks.”

The warrant for Clenney’s arrest states that two days later, the couple were having an unusually peaceful day before Obumseli left to get them sandwiches. Investigators say that at around 4 p.m., Clenney called Obumseli before going live on her Instagram.

About 30 minutes later, the warrant states, Clenney called Obumseli a second time. Ten minutes later, the warrant states that Clenney called her mother, who told police she heard the pair in an argument. The model called her mother again at 4:49 p.m., in a call that lasted over seven minutes.

One minute later, Clenney called 911, saying that Obumseli “was suffering a stab wound and requesting help.”

“On that call, [Clenney] can be heard in the background repeatedly saying he is dying and cannot feel his arm,” the warrant states, adding that the model could be heard saying, “I’m so sorry baby.”

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