Just hours after a man’s battered girlfriend got the locks changed on an apartment they shared in Huntington Beach, he returned and fatally stabbed her as the victim was frantically calling her mother and best friend, a prosecutor told jurors Monday, while the defendant’s attorney insisted it was a case of “mutual combat” and he should not be convicted of murder.
Craig James Charron, 39, is charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a knife.
Charron is accused of killing 25-year-old Laura Sardinha in their apartment at 8451 Jenny Drive on Sept. 2, 2020.
In early June of that year the two began dating and they quickly moved in together, Senior Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera told jurors Monday during opening statements of Charron’s trial.
“Things moved quickly,” Madera said.
But by August the relationship was on rocky ground as the victim accused him of attacking her, Madera said.
When Charron asked her via text where she was going on Aug. 15, 2020, she said, “locking myself in a box so you can’t beat me anymore,” according to Madera.
Sardinha suffered a perforation of her ear drum in the alleged attack, Madera said.
On Aug. 16, 2020, he demanded to know what she was texting her mother, and she said, tearfully, “You keep hitting me,” according to Madera.
“Massage my calves or end this relationship,” he replied, according to Madera.
“The defendant was manipulative and coercive,” Madera said.
After she received a significant sum of money in a settlement from an accident, he compelled her to hand it over to him as a sign of commitment, Madera said.
“By Sept. 1, she had had enough,” Madera said.
The text messages he sent her were “jealous and paranoid,” Madera said.
Some of the evidence in the trial will include smartphone video the two took of each other, the prosecutor said. In one video taken as she was trying to do school work on a laptop he repeatedly asked her if he could have another girlfriend come over, Madera said.
“And, yes, we’ve had sex,” he told the victim, according to Madera.
“You’re trying to (expletive) with me and be mean,” she responded. “I can’t wait to tell her you beat the (expletive) out of me.”
As Sardinha picks up her laptop to move away, he videos her, saying, “Why are you hitting me,” in another false allegation, Madera said.
Charron recorded video himself on another occasion to make it seem as if the victim “was the aggressor,” Madera said.
The defendant is 6-foot-1 and weighs about 220 pounds while the victim was 5-foot-3 and weighed about 113 pounds, Madera said.
The victim’s best friend since childhood told investigators the victim “was done with the defendant” on the day she was killed, Madera said.
Sardinha went to the leasing agent’s office to see what she could do to get the defendant kicked out, Madera said.
Despite COVID-19 protocols, the property manager let the victim into her office to “hide her,” Madera said.
When Sardinha returned to the apartment and got the locks changed, she received multiple calls from the defendant but ignored them, Madera said.
When Charron texted that he wanted to get his things, she advised him to coordinate that through the leasing office, Madera said.
Sardinha called her best friend and added her mother to the call when they heard the victim at one point say, “Oh my (expletive) God, he’s here,” according to Madera.
“They heard Laura yelling and screaming, `That hurts, please stop,’ ” Madera said.
The two called 911, and while her mother was on the line with a dispatcher a call from her daughter went to voicemail, Madera said. In the voicemail the victim was heard saying, “He’s going to kill me. … Oh my God, get away from me,’ ” Madera said.
The victim was heard “screaming until the line goes dead,” Madera said.
When police arrived they found the victim’s body in the bathroom with two stab wounds to the chest and multiple other slashing wounds, Madera said.
The left-handed defendant was found with a cut to his hand and what appeared to be “self-inflicted” cuts to his neck, Madera said.
The defendant’s attorney, Michael Guisti, said he would “not really dispute” much of the evidence in the trial.
The defense attorney said jurors would be instructed on first-degree and second-degree murder as well as voluntary manslaughter.
Charron “acted in self-defense during a violent struggle,” Guisti said. “He was rushed to surgery because his life was in danger.”
The defense attorney said Charron’s “actions were instinctual, not criminal.”