A man tricked his girlfriend, who stopped communicating with him, into meeting in a darkened Santa Ana alley where he repeatedly stabbed her to death with a pocket knife about two years ago.
On that, Luis Antonio Garcia Morales’ prosecutor and defense attorney agree.
A jury, however, will be asked to decide if it was a premeditated killing or one done in a “fit of rage.”
The difference to Morales would be life in prison without possibility of parole or someday having a chance at freedom.
Morales, 26, of Santa Ana, is accused of stabbing 21-year-old Maria Isabel Cerrillo about 50 times and leaving her for dead in an alley between Laurel and Jackson streets on Nov. 13, 2012.
When Cerrillo stopped responding to Morales’ text messages around Veteran’s Day that year, he bought a new phone in the name of the victim’s lesbian lover, with whom she recently had broken up, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jim Mendelson said.
Morales resumed exchanging text messages with Cerrillo, who thought she was communicating with her ex-live-in lover, Deisy Sandoval, and the two agreed to meet.
“She thought she was meeting a former girlfriend of hers,” Mendelson told jurors. “Instead, in that alley, she encountered defendant Morales. She was still clutching her keys as he stabbed her and left her to die.”
Morales planned an escape to Mexico, but an anonymous tip generated by news reports about the stabbing, led authorities to the defendant in Santa Ana, Mendelson said.
Morales had been “obsessed” with Cerrillo, who grew frightened of the defendant and instructed her father to lie to him so he would stop bothering her.
“He tells the defendant Morales, ‘Hey, she had an epileptic seizure and she’s gone to San Diego,’ ” and she won’t return home for months, Mendelson said.
That didn’t deter Morales, who concocted the phone ruse to set up the meeting with Cerrillo, Mendelson said.
After the fatal stabbing, Morales sold his Toyota Camry and called his boss at Chinatown Express and said he needed to quit his job and get his last paycheck before moving back to Mexico, according to Mendelson.
Police on a stakeout caught Morales at the restaurant, the prosecutor said.
The victim’s DNA was found under the defendant’s fingernails and a spot of blood from Cerrillo was found on Morales’ car door.
Morales’ attorney, Kevin Song of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, said his client made such a scene with his boss begging for his last paycheck the day before his arrest that it aroused the suspicion of a diner who recognized the defendant from news reports on the stabbing.
The anonymous tip from the customer led to Morales’ arrest the next day when he showed up for work to pick up his last paycheck, Song said.
Morales thought he was going to marry Cerrillo, who was actually just using him for money, Song said.
The two grew close when they comforted each other over their prior failed relationships, he said.
“This case is about cautious hope, cruel betrayal… blind rage… and absolute panic,” Song said.
“Maria Isabel was an attractive, young, sophisticated lady who turned out was very good with words and had perfected the art of leading people on,” Song said.
The victim — at the same time she was dating the defendant and was living with her lesbian lover — had a long-distance relationship in Northern California with another man to whom she was engaged, Song said.
The victim told a friend she was “only dating Luis for his money, because he buys her stuff,” Song said.
Cerrillo had asked Morales to hire a “witch doctor” to cast a spell on her ex-lover and the ex-lover’s new girlfriend to end their relationship, Song said. A short time later, she stopped responding to his text messages, the defense attorney said.
“He was so desperate to know what he did wrong” that the defendant pretended to be the ex-lover so he could get the victim to talk to him again, Song said.
When they did meet in the alley, “She told Mr. Morales she did not want a relationship with him, was only using him for his money, taunting him, ridiculing him,” Song said.
“For lack of a better words, he flipped out” and attacked her with a pocket knife, “in what can only be characterized as the footprint of rage,” Song said.
Morales’ “bumbling” attempts to flee show “he had no plan,” Song said.
“This act, as unfortunate as it was, was a sudden fit of rage, a rage that had been building for years and manifested itself on that fateful day,” Song said.
Signaling that he will argue for a lesser charge than murder, Song said, “He’s guilty of taking a person’s life,” not a premeditated killing.
Morales is charged with murder with a special circumstance of lying in wait with a sentencing enhancement for personal use of a deadly weapon.
— City News Service