By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A Chinatown man searched "how to preserve a dead body" and watched sadomasochist porn on the web as his date decomposed next to him in his grandmother's apartment, prosecutors said at the opening of his trial Wednesday.
Michael Lenahan, 32, sat with with the decaying body of Lorna Santiago, who was almost 25, for three days after her October 2007 murder, leaving the apartment only to buy liquor with her credit card and visit an Internet cafe, prosecutors said.
"I got a girl in my bedroom," accused murderer Lenahan allegedly told a friend who wanted to meet him to smoke pot.
Lenahan and Santiago had gone to dinner and then to Rick's Cabaret in Midtown where they got lap dances before retreating to his grandmother's apartment at 20 Confucius Plaza, court papers said.
Prosecutors said Santiago, who was new to the New York area and living in Jersey City with a roommate, was then strangled to death by her deranged date. He then disposed of her clothes and identification by tossing it down his building's dumpster shoot, the lawyers said.
The victim, who was nude and covered with garbage and other items when she was discovered, was working in Manhattan as a state department passport inspector, according to prosecutors.
Lenahan did drugs, watched porn and searched listings for escorts "as she lay next to him dead and still trapped in his perverse prison," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said.
"He engages in such cavalier behavior it would shock the conscious of even the most cold-blooded murderer," she added.
Lanahan's attorney, Fredrick Sosinsky, said that that Santiago had become "irrational and aggressive" during a fight with Lenahan over money, forcing him to put her in a choke-hold to restrain her. Sosinsky argued that Santiago's death was an "ill-fated accident," saying that his client had her in a sleeper hold that lasted too long.
The lawyer said the incident was similar to a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian. A driver can panic and leave the scene irrationally, Sosinsky said. He said his client's cocaine use contributed to his bad decisions after the alleged accident.
Lenahan's mother discovered the woman's decomposing body in the bedroom and called authorities.
