[symple_googlemap title=”100 block of North Hamilton Drive” location=”100 block of North Hamilton Drive” height=”300″ zoom=”15″]
A 59-year-old murderer who slit his girlfriend’s throat in her Beverly Hills apartment — where she survived long enough to write his initials in her own blood — was sentenced Monday to 26 years to life in state prison.
James Duane Grzeslo was convicted Aug. 10 of first-degree murder for the Oct. 26, 2011, killing of Cathy Carrasco-Zanini.
The jury also found true an allegation that Grzeslo, who served as his own attorney at trial, used a knife during the commission of the crime.
In a real-life version of a film noir flick, the 58-year-old dying woman crawled down a hallway and wrote the defendant’s initials — JG — in her own blood, Deputy District Attorney Keri Modder said.
Authorities were summoned to the woman’s apartment in the 100 block of North Hamilton Drive after Grzeslo told a therapist that he was having nightmares that he had killed the woman, the prosecutor said. They found Carrasco-Zanini with her throat slit.
The couple had been having problems and were going to therapy together, according to the prosecutor.
–City News Service