Pregnant reality star is shot dead while holding her young daughter three years after finding fame in Love Island-type show

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

A pregnant reality TV star was shot dead while holding her toddler in her arms in a horrific street attack in Romania.
Teodora Marcu, 23, was shot four times while out walking with her young daughter and her cousin on the outskirts of Bucharest at around 7pm on Saturday night.
The young woman, who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time, was killed by former partner Robert Lupu, Antena 3 CNN reports.
The taxi driver from Onești, 49, was alleged to have shot Marcu with a pistol before shooting himself with another handgun hours later, judicial sources told Libertatea.
Witnesses told local media that Lupu had followed his former partner, approaching calmly before pulling out a weapon and shooting her from close range.
Marcu was taken to hospital, but doctors were unable to save her life.
The young woman rose to fame as a contestant on a Romanian version of 'Love Island' broadcast in 2022.
She had spoken out about her strained on-off relationship with Lupu and took out a protection order against him in 2021.
Teodora and partner Alex Marcu announced they were expecting a child only in April, despite doctors telling them she would not be able to conceive, A1 reports.
She would have given birth to a son.
Horrific surveillance footage showed a man dressed in black approaching the young group. It did not pick up the sound of gunfire.
A woman pulls the children away from scene before going back over to Marcu, the footage shows.
Bystanders tried to provide first aid, Adevarul reports.
Marcu had been at a children's party with her cousin and her children before the attack.
They left the party and went to buy ice cream together when the victim was reportedly shot four times in the chest and abdomen.
The suspect calmly left the scene. Police found Lupu at a residential complex nearby soon after.
He shot himself as officers surrounded him, local media reports.
Lupu, 26 years her senior, had met Marcu when she was 14, Libertatea reports.
Marcu had claimed that they broke up after she learned that his relationship with his ex-wife had not completely ended, according to Adevarul.
They reconciled and then continued dating for two years before parting ways.
But speaking on Season 6 of the Romanian 'Love Island', she had said that she had sought a protection order as 'he was always coming after us and it annoyed me'.
'Alex and I really got along very well, and to see him always after you...'
'They lived in terror for a long time,' a former contestant, who wished to remain anonymous, told Actualitate.net.
'He knew everything: where they lived, where Teodora went, what she did. He followed her step by step.'
'She found out she was pregnant when she was on the show. And when Robert, her ex, found out, he said he was coming and cutting her belly,' they added.
Her partner, Alex, was in Chisnau at the time of the shooting, A1 reports.
Lupu had written a book, titled 'The Life of a Ragman and His Analyses', about his obsession with Ms Marcu, Libertatea reports.
In the book, which went unpublished, he claimed she had cheated on him with Alex Marcu.
In the book he reportedly describes how he decided to 'do something crazy' and 'become a magician with proper documents' in a bid to win her back.
A police statement said that officers were called to the scene of the shooting at around 7:09pm on May 31.
They were told that 'on a street in a residential neighborhood, in the Ștefăneștii de Jos commune, a 23-year-old woman had been physically assaulted, by shooting, with a weapon, by a man'.
Police, joined by medics, immediately went to the scene and provided first aid.
Marcu was then taken to hospital, where she later died.
'Following the checks carried out, the man in question, aged 49, was identified and will be tracked down,' the statement read.
Police said: 'Two lethal firearms were found on the man, one of which he used to commit suicide.
'The two weapons were seized by specialists from the Weapons Service of the Ilfov County Police Inspectorate and we are still trying to determine their origin.'
The investigation into her alleged murder is ongoing.