Jury Finds Soto Guilty in Slaying of Husband

Gladis Soto, the 38-year-old abused spouse who shot her husband before dismembering him and dumping his remains in the Ventura River, was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday by a Ventura County jury.

It took jurors less than three days of deliberation to conclude Soto planned and carried out the Feb. 20 killing of her husband, 35-year-old Pedro Alba, as he slept in the couple’s Ventura apartment.

Soto faces 50 years to life in prison, but two other findings by the jury could add time to her sentence, prosecutors said.

Use of a gun to commit the crime carries an added penalty of 25 years to life. Soto was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon for ramming the car of her husband’s girlfriend. This could add two more years to her sentence. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.

Soto admitted killing Alba. But in five weeks of testimony punctuated by grisly autopsy images and sordid tales of abuse and extramarital dalliances, jurors were asked to consider the motive for the slaying, which required weighing two conflicting versions of events.

Lawyers for Soto portrayed her as a tortured soul, scarred by sexual assault as a child and trapped in an often violent marriage by a spouse who flaunted his extramarital affairs and taunted his wife. In the end, years of abuse led Soto to snap, said defense experts and her attorney, Jorge Alvarado.

“She wasn’t able to control her behavior,” Alvarado argued. “Her emotions were removed from the action.”

Soto fired a single .25-caliber slug into Alba’s skull as he slept after he had allegedly raped her. She then cut his body into pieces in the garage, using a table saw, and was arrested after a transient spotted her setting fire to bags--containing her husband’s remains--tossed into the river bottom.

Jurors rejected the defense’s argument that Soto’s action was the result of battered woman’s syndrome. Instead, they sided more closely with an insidious portrait of the mother of five presented by Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Murphy.

The prosecutor described the killing as the calculated act of a vengeful woman jealous of her husband’s relationship with an Oxnard woman, Maria Ortega.

“There’s little doubt she was abused to some extent, but it’s clear that’s not what motivated her to kill. It was revenge and retaliation,” Murphy said.

During the trial, Murphy argued that Soto’s actions before and after the shooting show she was not a hapless victim driven by fear. Murphy told jurors Soto had purchased the gun less than a week before the shooting and waited until Alba was asleep before putting the weapon to his head and firing.

She also disputed Soto’s claim of rape, saying medical evidence did not corroborate the claim, and suggested Soto had lied about being raped to justify her actions.

Moreover, at the time of the killing, Murphy said Soto had posted bail to get out of jail for ramming Ortega’s car in January. During the trial, Ortega testified Soto had threatened harm if she continued to see Alba. The night he was killed, Alba had just returned from Ortega’s house to repay a debt.

In her closing argument, Murphy told the jury Soto always had the option to leave her husband of 15 years, and no matter how cruel Alba could be at the time, he wasn’t threatening her life when she killed him.