Nearly one month before Courtney Clenney allegedly stabbed her boyfriend during a domestic dispute inside their luxury Miami condo, the OnlyFans model made an ominous threat during another argument.
“I’m actually fucking not having a good day where I actually, literally fucking want to kill you,” Clenney is heard saying in a March 5 cellphone video—which does not show her face—first reported by WSVN. “But you don’t take me seriously.”
The Miami State Attorney’s Office says that on April 3, Clenney allegedly stabbed her-then boyfriend Christian Obumseli in the heart during an argument inside a 22nd-floor condo at the One Paraiso luxury building. Right after the incident, Clenney called 911 to frantically report that Obumseli “has a stab wound on his shoulder” before eventually admitting to police that she had thrown a knife at Obumseli from 10 feet away in self-defense.
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An autopsy report later revealed that Obumseli suffered a “stab wound to the chest… and that the knife punctured the subclavian artery.” Clenney has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
Both defense attorneys and prosecutors agree that Obumseli was killed after a toxic relationship that included allegations of domestic violence—each side has different arguments on who was the true aggressor. But seemingly unbeknownst to Clenney, her 27-year-old crypto trader boyfriend was recording some of their arguments before his death, including one where she can be heard calling him a racial slur and another where she expresses violent intent.
Several of the videos, which are usually obstructed by Obumseli’s hand or pocket, were called into question by Clenney’s defense during a Tuesday hearing. Defense attorney Frank Prieto stressed that these videos were made without his client’s knowledge—and that while Obumseli was able to choose his words because he knew he was being recorded, Clenney thought she was having a private conversation with her boyfriend.
Clenney’s defense team previously told The Daily Beast that these “snapshots of ‘evidence’ without any context will prevent our client from receiving a fair trial, where the evidence will show that Courtney acted in self-defense.”
Prosecutors, however, tried to argue that Clenney is heard shouting in many of the videos and that “a reasonable person shouting at the top of their lungs can expect that their neighbors will hear it and possibly record it.”
Judge Laura Shearon Cruz seemed to hear both legal sides, ruling that recorded conversations at a normal volume were private—and therefore excluded from trial—but those where she is screaming “at the top of her lungs” were public and therefore admissible.
Prosecutors are expected to use these documented instances of the couple’s volatile relationship to show how the two always seemed to go back to each other despite harrowing instances of abuse.
As previously reported by The Daily Beast, text messages between the pair reveal several instances in which Obumseli made harrowing allegations of abuse against Clenney—including that she stabbed him in the leg so deeply he couldn’t walk, he had been hit so many times in the head that he felt like he had a concussion, and that he needed stitches after sustaining cuts to the cheek and chin.
“Is love going to kill me?” Obumseli texted Clenney on Feb. 28, 2022. “I got cheated on. I got called that word again. I got slapped in my stitches that has [sic] re-opened multiple times and it’s not healing fast enough. I’ve gotten kicked out.”
The warrant for Clenney’s arrest, however, states that one the day of the murder the couple were having an unusually peaceful day before Obumseli left briefly to get sandwiches. At around 4 p.m. investigators say Clenney called Obumseli several times before going live on her Instagram.
When Obumseli ultimately returned, the pair got into a fight and investigators say Clenney called her mother twice. Clenney would later tell police that Obumseli “grabbed her by the neck” and “slammed her against the wall,” according to court documents.
She said she was able to “break free” before she eventually “flung” the knife at Obumseli when she said he ran toward her. 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 she could be heard saying, “I’m so sorry baby.”
Prosecutors on Tuesday said that Obumseli sustained a wound that was “downward and to the right,” almost like a “cross-body” cut. The hearing, which will determine whether Clenney can be released on bond pending trial, will resume on Thursday.
