Woman Pleads No Contest in Shooting

VENTURA —  In a courtroom packed with battered-women’s advocates, an Oxnard woman pleaded no contest Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter for shooting and killing her estranged and abusive husband.

Maria Luisa “Edna” Reyes entered the plea after prosecutors lowered the charge against her from murder to voluntary manslaughter. She faces a minimum of probation and a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.

Although prosecutors originally said Reyes had appeared to have coldbloodedly killed Martin Reyes, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Holmes said their decision to lower the charge came after a close look at the history of abuse Edna Reyes had suffered at the hands of her husband.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox, who prosecuted the case, would not comment Tuesday. Public Defender Jean Farley said she advised Reyes to take her case to trial so a jury could consider the extensive abuse and stalking by her husband that she had endured.

The case will now go directly to Superior Court for an Aug. 27 sentencing hearing.

Holmes would not comment on any sentencing recommendation, saying that prosecutors will wait until the probation report is filed before they make any decisions.

Farley said she will ask for probation for the Oxnard woman, who came to court dressed in a gray suit rather than the blue prison garb she wore at her arraignment two weeks ago.

Reyes, whose ankles were handcuffed throughout the hearing, cried when questioned by Fox about whether she understood her rights. Farley said the 29-year-old woman, who had been married to Martin Reyes for 12 years, was extremely depressed and at one point had been placed under a suicide watch in jail.

Battered-women’s advocates, supporters of Edna Reyes and her mother, Maria Valerio Paredes, sat quietly in the courtroom during the hourlong hearing.

Despite Edna Reyes’ reluctance to be the focus of media and activists’ attention, her case has mobilized battered-women’s groups throughout Southern California.

“My hope is that the judge will look at all the circumstances,” said Barbara Marquez O’Neill of Interface Children and Family Services, a county children and battered-women’s support group. “Even though [Martin Reyes] at that moment may not have been threatening her, she had done everything she could do within the system and there was still a reason for her to feel in danger. We are going to give her all the support she wants.”

Edna Reyes was initially charged with murder after shooting Martin Reyes in front of two Oxnard police officers and her 11-year-old son July 5. The officers had responded to a domestic dispute at her Oxnard apartment. As Edna Reyes was preparing to leave her home with her children, she pulled a revolver from her purse and shot her husband twice in the chest, police said.

Edna Reyes had filed a restraining order against her husband, but did not know it had expired a few weeks before he showed up at her apartment.

According to Oakland police, Martin Reyes was jailed in 1989 for spousal abuse, and complaints had been filed against him for abusing their children.

Edna Reyes had moved to Mexico in January of this year to escape her husband, whom she was in the process of divorcing, Farley said. But he followed her to Mexico and eventually back to California.

Farley said Reyes made the decision to plead no contest with the hope that she could be released from jail sooner and be reunited with her four children, ages 3 to 11.

Battered-women’s advocates, who attended the hearing, said they intend to keep close tabs on any developments in the case and hope for leniency in her sentencing.

“The system has failed [Edna Reyes] several times before,” said Tammy Bruce, president of the Women’s Progress Alliance, a nonprofit women’s advocacy group. “We are here to see that it does not fail her again.”

Five representatives from the Los Angeles-based alliance--including Denise Brown, the sister of murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson--came to the hearing.

In addition, a dozen women from the Farmworker Women’s Leadership Project took the day off work to show their support for Edna Reyes, who at one point had worked in the fields of Ventura.