I stumbled across this article today about the trial of a man who allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend…. I thought some of the wording was interesting. I have marked up this article to show what I found interesting about it.
Ventura murder trial opens
A Ventura woman tried break free from her killer’s grip but was stabbed more than 130 times in a deadly attack, a prosecutor told a jury today in the murder trial of 24-year-old Uriel Cruz.
Prosecutor Rebecca Day told jurors that the 2007 death of Barbarita Yvonne Luna, 25, was premeditated murder and that her alleged killer, Cruz, had been lying in wait.
“She was using her hands to push him away, but she couldn’t get out of his grasp,” Day said in her opening statement to the Ventura County Superior Court jury.
The prosecutor said Cruz and Luna were romantically involved until she broke off their relationship, and she refused his numerous requests to get back together.
Cruz is accused of stabbing Luna to death in a car in the parking lot of the Target store on Main Street in Ventura on May 11, 2007. Authorities say he drove away and was arrested later the same day by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Calabasas after his relatives urged him to turn himself in.
Today, the jury saw photographs taken by Los Angeles County deputies. One showed Cruz standing next to his car with blood on his clothes and face. Other photos showed the victim’s lifeless and bloody body, slumped in the passenger side of the car.
Cruz’s lawyer, Josie Banuelos of the county Public Defender’s Office, said he never intended to kill Luna.
In her opening statement to the jury, Banuelos said Cruz has a borderline personality disorder and a history of cutting himself to relieve his mental pain. Banuelos said he bought the knife to mutilate himself and had no intention of killing Luna.
“That knife was for him because he was going to go see Ms. Luna. He was afraid he might be hearing something he didn’t want to hear, and he could cut himself to relieve the pain,” Banuelos said.
She said every interview Cruz had with detectives indicates that he told them: “I didn’t intend to kill her. Why would I kill the woman I love?”
Day pointed out to jurors that Cruz isn’t using the insanity defense in his trial.
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