O.C. woman guilty of luring man to motel for sex, killing him

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An Orange County woman was convicted Thursday of luring a man she met at a nightclub back to her motel room with the promise of sex, where she robbed and killed him, allegedly with the help of her son, prosecutors said.

Leticia Carrasco, 52, was found guilty by a jury of one felony count of murder and one felony count of second-degree robbery, and faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in state prison, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office. She is set to be sentenced in April.

On the evening of Dec. 22, 2008, prosecutors said Carrasco met Matias Ojeda Vasquez at a bar in Stanton. Authorities said she encouraged him to follow her to a motel room, knowing that her son, Noel, would be waiting there to rob him.

When they arrived, prosecutors said, Noel Carrasco allegedly ordered the victim to give them his money. When he refused, prosecutors said the mother and son violently attacked him, stabbing him five times, choking him and hitting him over the head. Vasquez died as a result of the attack, prosecutors said.

The two allegedly wrapped his body in bedding, put a trash bag over his head and a dog food bag over his feet, then loaded him in the trunk of his car. Prosecutors said they dumped the body off Interstate 15 in the the desert, as they drove toward Las Vegas.

Noel Carrasco is also accused of using Vasquez’s cellphone to send text messages to his girlfriend, prosecutors said.

Leticia Carrasco was arrested Jan. 14, 2009, in Las Vegas -- two days after her son’s arrest. On Jan. 15, 2009, Vasquez’s remains were found in the desert by a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department helicopter. Noel Carrasco, 26, is charged with one felony count of special circumstances murder in the commission of a robbery and one felony count of second-degree robbery, according to prosecutors. He faces a maximum sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole, if convicted. His jury trial is set to begin in March.

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-- Rick Rojas