The son of the Texas man, who is being held in a Colombian jail for allegedly killing his DJ girlfriend, was once a special guest of former House Speaker Paul Ryan at the 2018 State of the Union address after he had recovered from a rare form of cancer.
John Poulos allegedly stuffed a suitcase with the dead body of Valentina Trespalacios, 23, into the trunk of a rental car before he abandoned it in a dumpster in the Colombian capital of Bogotá this week.
Five years prior, Poulos and his wife Ashley accompanied their son Jackson, who was six years old at the time, to the House Chamber for former President Donald Trump’s message to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018.
A tweet that is still on the former speaker’s account shows the then Congressman sharing a hug with the boy while his parents stand to the side smiling.
‘6-year-old Jackson Poulos from Wisconsin is a fighter who beat a very rare form of cancer,’ Ryan wrote. He’s now received a clear scan, and I’m happy to have him as my #SOTU guest.’
The family, who have two other children, posed with Ryan in honor of the occasion.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan with Ashley Poulos (left), Jackson Poulos (center) and John Poulos (right)
John Poulos (pictured) was taken into custody in Panama on Tuesday moments before he was about to board a flight to Turkey and then connect to Montenegro. On Wednesday, a Colombian judge approved a request by the Office of the Attorney General in Colombia that was required to present to Panamanian authorities to process Poulo’s extradition
Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) had been dating John Poulos for eight months
DailyMail.com was able to confirm that a now defunct GoFundMe account that was set up in August 2016 was active as early as Wednesday – a day after John Poulos was taken into custody in Panamá.
Colombian National Police launched a manhunt for his capture for beating and strangling to death Trespalacios.
A well-known DJ in Colombia, Trespalacios was found stuffed into a suitcase that was inside a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá on Sunday.
John Poulos then fled on a flight to Panamá City, Panama, and was arrested Tuesday moments before he was set to board a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where he then had to wait until Thursday for a connecting flight to Montenegro, where there is no extradition treaty with Colombia.
Poulos told authorities in Panamá that the defunct Medellín Cartel was behind Trespalacios’ murder and that he had fled Colombia because cartel members wanted to kill him.
According to the defunct GoFundMe page, Jackson was four years old when doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma in his GI tract and abdomen. The cancer is very rare, with only about 350 cases a year in the United States.
In 2017, Jackson Poulos underwent a 13-hour operation in which the surgeon removed more than 150 tumors that were detected in his pelvis, sigmoid colon, appendix, spleen and gallbladder.
The parents sought the help of family, friends and strangers to raise funds to hire a babysitter to assist the family with the care of their two other children while they worked.
At the time, the concerned parents stated they would be undergoing ‘genome testing to try to gain extra tools for treatment as well as bring on some specialists to fine-tune his care regimen.’
The Poulos family was able to raise $59,577 on GoFundMe, but the account was shut down by Thursday.
DailyMail.com reached out to GoFundMe for comment.
Poulos and his wife Ashley accompanied their son Jackson, who was six years old at the time, to the House Chamber for former President Donald Trump’s message to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018
One of the mugshots of John Poulos shows that he has a large scratch on the left side of his face, perhaps a sign that his girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios, fought for her life before she was killed
John Poulos is facing four counts – aggravated femicide, concealment, alteration and destruction of evidence.
He had been in Colombia for about a week, according to Trespalacios’ family, and had rented out an apartment in the north side of Bogotá to move in with Trespalacios, who he was planning on marrying.
The couple had met eight months ago, the young woman’s family aid.
Trespalacios’ hairstylist, Veronica Jiménez, confirmed to DailyMail.com that Poulos was married and had three children, but that that mother of the kids had reportedly filed a restraining order against him because he was violent.
She said that Poulos had become increasingly jealous and was upset with Trespalacios because she refused his demands to go public with their relationship on her social media accounts. Trespalacios had explained to him that her network was only to promote her DJ work.
Poulos arrived at the apartment Thursday and moved in with Trespalacios on Friday evening. He accompanied her to a DJ gig early Saturday morning at Nexxus bar.
Valentina Trespalacios was beaten and strangled to death before she was stuffed into a suitcase that was dumped in a construction waste container near a park in Bogotá, Colombia, on Sunday. The 23-year-old was dating John Poulos, a resident from Texas, who is accused of killing her and made his first court appearance Thursday
Turkish Airlines ticket purchased by John Poulos to travel from Panamá City, Panamá, to Istanbul, Turkey. The 35-year-old from Texas also had a connecting flight to Montenegro
A homeless man was searching through a waste container in the Bogotá neighborhood of Los Cámbulos when he discovered the suitcase with Valentina Trespalacios’ body
Surveillance camera footage showed Poulos pushing a foot cart with their luggage bags in it, one of them was covered with a sheet and reportedly contained Trespalacios’ dead body.
Poulos placed the suitcase in the trunk of a Volkswagen Voyager and drove off. A security camera near a park in the south side of Bogotá showed him tossing the bag into the dumpster and escaping.
A homeless person searching a dumpster for recyclables Sunday afternoon discovered a blue suitcase with Trespalacios’ head sticking out from the side.
Poulos arrived in Bogotá early Thursday morning and made his first court appearance Thursday evening.
The hearing lasted about five hours and was interrupted on several occasions because the court appointed interpreter was having issues properly translating since Poulos is not fluent in Spanish.
John Poulos (left) had plans of living in Colombia full time and marrying his DJ girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios (right). He was arrested in Panama on Tuesday, two days after her body was found inside a suitcase in a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá
Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating her boyfriend John Poulos for eight months before her violent death
It was revealed that he didn’t want to be represented by a public defender and that his parents hired a lawyer.
‘They denied me a lawyer in Panama, when I got to the airport I asked to speak to the US Embassy, which took a long time,’ Poulos said during the hearing. ‘Only an hour before the hearing my defense attorney arrived, which is not what a normal person would want in my situation.’
He also complained to the judge that he didn’t feel safe in the Bogotá jail because of the case’s notoriety and demanded additional security.
The alleged murderer questioned the judge as to why he was escorted by heavily armed officers when he arrived in Bogotá, but was only guarded by a few officers near his jail cell.
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue8KroKadX6i1sK%2FKoqWgZaaesaa7jKyfqK%2BjYrqiuoysn6inpJ67qHnGoqmlnqKesq%2Bw0maqqKZdnrtuscCrZg%3D%3D