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An Army Reservist’s body was never found. Now, an LA jury says her fiance murdered her

April 3, 2026

A Brazilian man was convicted Friday of first-degree murder in the strangulation death of his fiancee, a U.S. Army National Guard reservist who vanished from a hotel in El Segundo, and whose body was never found.

Luis Antonio Gomes Akay choked Anna Laura Costa Porsborg, 22, who was vacationing with him in late December 2022, the jury found. Gomes Akay, who testified in his own defense, denied killing her.

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating less than two and a half hours.

Gomes Akay is scheduled to be sentenced on April 27.

Costa Posborg’s mother, who attended the trial, broke down in tears at the verdict.

“It was extremely difficult, but I had the support of a lot of people, and the results give me a little peace of mind right now,” said the mother, Erbena Costa. “Even though it doesn’t bring my daughter back, but (it) gives me the sense that the justice does work.”

Gomes Akay killed Costa Porsborg in the couple’s room on the evening of December 27, 2022, then removed her body in a suitcase, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams told the jury in her closing arguments on Thursday, April 2.

The prosecutor characterized Gomes Akay as a manipulative, remorseless man who had gotten away with killing a woman in the past, in Brazil, and thought he would get away with it again.

“The truth in this case is very clear,” Willams told the jury. “And it doesn’t disappear just because we can’t find Anna Laura.”

The prosecutor focused on Gomes Akay’s alleged history of domestic violence, his confessions to law enforcement and informants, cadaver dogs alerting to his rental car and the hotel room bathtub, and Gomes Akay’s behavior on the last night that Costa Porsborg was seen alive.

Defense attorney Stephen Kahn argued that Gomes Akay and Costa Porsborg drank a large amount of beer that night and that Costa Porsborg was angry about Gomes Akay being on his phone too much. When they returned to their hotel room from a bowling alley, Kahn said, Costa Porsborg, drunk and mad, just left.

There is a reasonable possibility that she went out into the cold El Segundo night, drunk, and another fate befell her, Kahn argued.

And, he stressed to the jury, neither Costa Porsborg nor her remains were ever found.

“If she wasn’t in that suitcase, she went out of that room,” the defense lawyer said. “Los Angeles is unsafe,” the lawyer argued, especially at night and if someone is inebriated.

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Williams presented a picture of a young, vibrant woman excited about her career in the U.S. Army, deeply connected to her family and friends. Costa Porsborg was “living her best young life before he [Gomes Akay] stole it from her,” Williams said.

On December 27, 2022, just before 6 p.m., Gomes Akay and Costa Porsborg arrived at the bowling alley, where they knocked down pins and drank. It was there, Williams said that Costa Porsborg sent texts to her mother for the last time.

“Thank you mami I came to play bowling I love you,” the messages read. Surveillance footage presented by the prosecution showed the couple leaving the bowling alley as it rained.

Williams argued that Gomes Akay strangled Costa Porsborg to death in the couple’s hotel room when they returned, putting her body in the bathtub until he likely disposed of her in the mountains near Sunland-Tujunga.

Williams said after Gomes Akay killed her, phone records showed he was on his phone – searching for smoke shops and pornography, going on Tinder and visiting the OnlyFans website late into the night. He also called escort services, the prosecutor said, and asked one woman to come to his hotel.

Williams argued that Costa Porsborg’s body was likely in the hotel bathroom, in the bathtub, including later when Gomes Akay brought a woman up to his room. Cadaver dogs would later alert to the bathtub, Williams said.

The next day, Dec. 28, Williams argued, the defendant continued sightseeing around Los Angeles, going to Palos Verdes, driving around Malibu and visiting bars, though he later said he was looking for Costa Porsborg.

Kahn argued that Gomes Akay and Costa Porsborg drank a large amount of beer at the bowling alley and that Costa Porsborg could have left the hotel room in anger, and then went missing. The defense lawyer said Costa Porsborg was angry about her fiancé’s phone usage earlier that night.

“You may not like him. He may have certain flaws that are who he is. He may be more involved with his phone than anything else. But that doesn’t make him a murderer,” Kahn told the jury. That doesn’t make him able to put his arms around the neck of the woman he loves.”

Costa Porsborg was in constant communication with her mother, so much so that when she did not receive a daily “fit pic” of her daughter’s outfit choice the next day, on Dec. 28, she became immediately concerned.

Costa, Costa Porsborg’s mother, had messaged Gomes Akay, writing in part, “Good morning, how are you, I need to hear about Anna Laura…” according to evidence presented by the prosecution. Police later discovered that Gomes Akay did not respond to Costa’s initial inquiry about her daughter’s whereabouts until roughly 17 hours later.

It is then, when Costa became increasingly concerned about her daughter and indicated that she would be contacting authorities, that Gomes Akay realized he needed to report Costa Porsborg missing and dispose of her body, Williams argued.

He left the hotel the next morning, dragging a suitcase that the prosecution argued the 5’4″, 132-pound Costa Porsborg was stuffed into, Williams said. Gomes Akay said it contained dirty clothes. Cadaver dogs would later alert to the rental car.

Phone records showed he was in the Sunland-Tujunga area, near Big Tujunga Canyon Road. Gomes Akay testified that he was there for only five minutes, but phone records disproved that, Williams said.

It is near this mountainous area where authorities suspect Costa Porsborg’s body was dumped, though her remains have never been found. Her phone was never used again and her bank was never accessed either, Williams said. Nearly a year later, her cell phone was found in the area.

But, the defense lawyer argued, “Perhaps the reason that she has not been found, is because she is not there.” He characterized the prosecution’s case as lacking direct evidence and impressed upon the jury the importance of reasonable doubt.

Kahn argued, for example, that since the car was a rental, there is doubt that the alert to the vehicle was clear.

In testimony Wednesday through a Portuguese interpreter, Gomes Akay told jurors that he last saw Costa Porsborg as she stormed out of the room after asking him whether he was going to be on his phone or going to pay attention to her. He said the woman warned him not to come after her.

He said that he didn’t immediately worry about her because she had walked away to use her phone before, and that he thought she would be returning to the hotel room.

Gomes Akay was arrested on Jan. 1, 2023 and eventually confessed to law enforcement and to informants in a jail cell.

Kahn argued that the confessions were made because he was stressed and believed that if he confessed he would get a lighter sentence or be let go, so he fabricated a story.

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Gomes Akay was focused on the concept of “no body, no crime,” which he thought meant he would not be convicted of Anna Laura’s murder, Williams argued. His friends testified that he had discussed the concept in years prior, Williams said.

“He has a fixation with this ‘no body, no crime,’ and of course we know why, because it takes us back to 2017 and Ana Claudia,” she said.

Ana Claudia is Ana Claudia Dos Santos Silva, who disappeared in early 2017 in Esperanca, Brazil, Williams said. The 24-year-old had been dating the defendant, Gomes Akay, for a few months, but had recently ended the relationship when she was last seen in Feb. 2017. During the relationship, she became distant from her family, though they lived on the same property, and Gomes Akay was controlling, even changing her last name to Akay on Facebook.

After Dos Santos Silva disappeared, Gomes Akay told her family that she had left, and to not try and contact her. A witness testified that she had seen Gomes Akay pulling Dos Santos Silva’s body out of her home, covered in a blanket, Williams said.

But the witness thought that Dos Santos Silva may have been drunk and passed out, and the defense lawyer highlighted that she never reported the sighting to police.

Kahn argued that some of the testimony relating to Dos Santos Silva’s case was “repetitious” and seemed rehearsed. He argued that the inclusion of that case happened because the case of Costa Porsborg was too weak alone, which the prosecution refuted.

Gomes Akay was never charged in the Dos Santos Silva disappearance.

Gomes Akay is on trial solely for Costa Porsborg’s killing, but the prosecutor said the disappearance of Dos Santos Silva was included to demonstrate that he has killed before, which contributes to her argument that he knew what it was like to kill and intended to do so when he strangled Costa Porsborg.

“He got away with it once before and he thinks he’s gonna get away with it again,” Williams told the jury. “Let him know that ‘no body’ (being found) is still a crime in the United States.”

City News Service contributed to this report.

Orange County Register

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An Army Reservist’s body was never found. Now, an LA jury says her fiance murdered her

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