‘Killer who buried body in a graveyard was caught out by his grammar’
A jobless supermarket worker who killed a millionaire, buried her in a cemetery and tried to pretend she was still alive was caught out by the imperfect English he used in text messages, a court heard.
Turk Serkan Kaygusuz, 42, befriended Norma Girolami, 70, at a local swimming pool and she gave him a fortune over the next three years in a ‘parasitic’ relationship.
After fleecing her out of £284,000 he murdered her around 19 August 2021 and successfully hid her body for over a year by burying it in a cemetery, a court heard.
Ms Girolami, of Italian heritage, lived alone in a £900,000 flat in Elm Court, Highgate, and had returned from a day at the seaside when she was killed.
Kaygusuz, from Turkey, denies her murder but admits hiding her body, theft and fraud by stealing her bank cards, jewellery and £55,000.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey today, Ms Girolami’s friend Linda Crystallis said she had contacted police when she started to receive text messages from her friend’s phone using poor grammar.
Ms Girolami spoke three languages and her English was perfect.
Ms Crystallis said she had known Ms Girolami for 60 years since they went to school together at St Angela’s Convent School in Palmers Green.
She said Ms Girolami was born in Holloway and was the only child of Emily and John Girolmai.
Ms Girolami had never married or had children but had relationships with men which were ‘not particularly happy.’
The victim used to work in her 20s as a tour guide as she spoke three languages, English, Italian and German.
Her parents had multiple businesses and her and her mother looked after a lettings business.
When Ms Girolami was young, her father left her mother and had another family resulting in three half-siblings who she was not close to.
‘In the middle of our lives we were less in touch but for the last 15 years it was constant, in touch several times a week sometimes daily, we went on holidays together,’ Ms Crystallis said.
‘Norma was a gregarious, fun, loving, kind and generous person – sometimes too generous.
‘She really liked to be generous and didn’t like to say no and found it very difficult to say no.
‘She was over generous with money. She was sometimes a bit careless with her safety, but innocently.
‘In her bathroom cabinet she had all her lipsticks lined up like soldiers at right angles. All her clothes were in plastic bags in her wardrobe, everything covered in plastic.
‘If we were having lunch it would have to be between 12 and 1.30, she had to be home at certain times, stepping out of routine was sometimes difficult for her.
‘She was very careful of her space, she came to stay with me in Greece where my husband and I had an apartment but she wanted to stay in a hotel rather than stay with us.’
She said that while holidaying in Greece, Ms Girolmai told her that she had met Kaygusuz, who she called Serk, at Archway Leisure Centre.
‘He was considerably younger and seemed to flatter her and she had became quite fond of him.
‘She said while she was in the hot tub he had made advances to her. At first she was somewhat disturbed by it but she found it a bit flattering.
‘Norma was encouraged by Serk to give him money and she did so on a regular basis.
‘She bought him a car and also paid for an electrician’s course that he said would enhance his employment opportunities.
‘In the early days she was glad to help, she thought it made him happy.
‘It’s not for me to judge, but I felt that maybe they were both getting what they wanted from the relationship.
‘They both liked the cinema and sometimes would go out for dinner, but always at Norma’s expense.
‘He asked her many times to move in but she did not want that under any circumstances. He never stayed over. He never had keys to her flat. He was regularly asking her for that and she refused.’
She said Ms Girolmai would often ask her for advice on financial matters.
‘She wasn’t good with numbers, she struggled with money and I’ve always helped her to have bank accounts, put money in investments, make a will, trying to safeguard her as much as I could..
Ms Crystallis said that in June and July 2021 Norma had lost a lot of weight and looked very stressed.
‘She confided in me that Serk has taken in excess of six figure sums, about £200,000 or more.
‘I asked her if she could stop giving him money and she said she couldn’t. I asked her if she was afraid of him and she said yes.’
‘Why do you think she was afraid?’ prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward asked.
‘Because he wanted that money and she was frightened if she said no, she didn’t say it, but I imagined she was frightened of him being violent,’ Ms Crystallis replied.
‘Had she told you he’d been violent?’ Ms Ledward asked.
‘She intimated it but she didn’t say it. I think she was ashamed or embarrassed.
‘She was very worried about money as funds were going down very rapidly and she was renting her flat. She wanted to move to get away from Serk, be a bit closer to me and reduce her outgoings.’
She said the last time she saw Ms Girolmai was at Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath
in August 2021, shortly before she disappeared.
‘She was very sad and very destressed, about the money, about Serk and about the situation. She felt very trapped and very lonely,’ Ms Crystallis said.
‘She wished she hadn’t met Serk, she wished she’d not rented that flat and she wished she’d been more careful with her money.’
On 20 August, the morning after Kaygusuz is said to have killed Ms Girolami, Ms Crystallis received a text from her phone saying ‘Hi Chuch going away now to the sea.’
Ms Crystallis said her friend would not have text at that time as she struggled to get out of bed in the morning due to her arthritis, and the pair had planned to meet that day.
She cried in the witness box as she told the court that ‘Chuch’ was her school nickname for her friend, not the other way round.
‘Norma called me FB and I called her Chuch. Coupled with the time I thought it was very odd.’
After a few texts, she realised that the person texting was not her friend.
‘I didn’t know who it was but it wasn’t Norma. Norma spoke absolutely perfect English and wrote in her texts in perfect English with full stops and capital letters.’
Ms Girolami’s body was found 15 months later in November 2022 in St James’s Churchyard in Frien Barnet.
Kaygusuz, of Crouch Hall Court, Sparsholt Road, Islington, denies murder.
Jurors were told he admits perverting the course of justice by hiding the body, theft, three counts of fraud and one of transferring criminal property.
Ms Girolami’s body was found in November 2022 in St James’s Churchyard in Frien Barnet.
Police were directed to the site by a witness who thought the plot had been used to illegally bury someone’s ashes.
Peter Murray, a member of the church congregation, had seen a patch of disturbed ground near the beginning of August 2021.
On 21 August he returned and saw the grass and turf had been put back over the plot.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey he said: ‘My grandparents are buried there, my father married there and my daughter.
‘I married there in 1963, I had my diamond wedding anniversary yesterday.
‘I look after the churchyard, we have 16 war graves, 11 commonwealth war graves and the rest private graves with soldiers interned there.
‘I try to look after the churchyard visually because we have had problems with fly tippers and the homeless unfortunately sometimes take residence.
‘I keep an eye out for problems to report to the churchwardens. Pick up litter, empty McDonald’s kit, bear cans and bottles.
‘I noticed it looked as if someone had been doing a test dig on the ground which I had assumed was somebody wanting to put their family ashes there.
He said the patch of ground was the size of a two by six foot grave plot.
‘The council, in theory, cut the grass, but it just looked like someone had got a spade or something and started to dig.
‘When I came back a week or so later it looked like it had been tidied up, so I took a photograph of it.’
He said that in November 2022 they were preparing for school children to lay poppies on the graves for Remembrance Day when he saw a forensics tent being put up.
‘We were curious what was happening so went and asked and they told me it was a possible crime scene.
‘I went home, and then I thought about the earlier disturbance I’d seen and this was near where the tent was being erected, probably about 40 feet away from the area police had cordoned off.’
Mr Murray showed his photo to a policeman and the forensics tent was moved to where he had seen the disturbed ground, and Ms Girolmai’s body was found there.
The trial continues.
