Boyfriend charged with killing girlfriend, leaving body in suitcase

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Christine Stewart, 47 (left), and Joseph Dorsey, 28 (right), are seen in this file photo. Dorsey has been formally charged with Stewart's murder after her body was found in a suitcase at a Poway motel on Wednesday, August 8, 2012. (KABC Photo / Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner)

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POWAY, Calif. (KABC) -- A Lake Elsinore man is on the run after being charged with killing his girlfriend and leaving her body in a rolling suitcase.

Deputies suspect that Joseph Dorsey killed 47-year-old Christine Stewart before taking her body to a Poway motel. He was charged in the murder Friday.

Dorsey checked into the motel last weekend, but never checked out. Hotel workers found Stewart's body Wednesday.

Stewart was first reported missing Aug. 4, the same day she and Dorsey were last seen together near a business complex in Canyon Lake.