Woman Slain to Silence Her, Prosecutors Say

After a late night drinking and dancing at an Oxnard bar last April, Anna Mendez left arm-in-arm with a man she had recently met.

Four hours later, the 41-year-old woman’s body was found on Colonia Road lying half-naked in a pool of blood. Her throat had been slashed and she had been stabbed in the chest.

Cruz Belman Alcantar, the last person seen with Mendez, is on trial for first-degree murder and faces a special allegation that he used a deadly weapon.

If convicted, the Oxnard parolee and construction worker could face 75 years to life in prison.

In opening statements Monday in Ventura County Superior Court, prosecutors alleged that Alcantar, 25, killed Mendez to prevent her from calling police after the pair got in a traffic accident.

Alcantar, a convicted child molester who had been deported to Mexico, was living in the country illegally and had recently violated parole by getting arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. He had not reported that arrest to his parole officer.

“This case is about one man with a motive to kill,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Murphy, as she showed the jurors pictures of the victim. “He was willing to kill Anna Mendez to avoid going back to prison. He killed her to silence her.”

Alcantar’s attorney argued that the defendant did leave with Mendez on the night of April 23, but that he didn’t kill her. He left the bar to drive her home, but she was alive when they parted, Deputy Public Defender Steve Lipson said.

“Cruz Alcantar was the last one seen alive with Ms. Mendez,” Lipson said. “He was on parole. But that’s it. The evidence will show he is not the killer.”

Oxnard police arrested Alcantar on April 25 as he was walking near his home, a converted garage in the Colonia neighborhood of Oxnard. Detectives had been tipped to the make and model of Alcantar’s truck.

At the time of the arrest, Alcantar was holding a bag that contained Mendez’s purse, pants, underwear and sandals, Murphy said.

Murphy told jurors that the defendant and the victim, who were both drunk, left the bar about 1 a.m. They got into Alcantar’s truck and soon collided with another car, causing Mendez’s head to slam against the windshield. When they arrived at Alcantar’s home, she wanted to call police but he wouldn’t let her, Murphy said.

When Mendez left his house, Alcantar followed her, tore open her blouse, stabbed her several times and slashed her throat, Murphy said. Police later found her blood on his pants and his partial fingerprints on the knife discovered near the victim, the prosecutor said.

Murphy said Alcantar denied everything to Oxnard police in April, but confessed the murder to a cellmate at Ventura County Jail months later.

“He said he had already been to prison because of a woman and it wasn’t going to happen again,” she said.

Lipson said Alcantar told the cellmate about meeting Mendez and leaving the Oxnard bar with her. But he never said anything about stabbing her. The cellmate lied and “manipulated the system” so prosecutors would help him avoid prison time on a spousal abuse charge, the attorney said.

Lipson told jurors that the physical evidence will show that his client did not murder Mendez. Her blood got on his pants when he helped clean up her injuries from the car accident, Lipson said.

“Cruz helped get blood off her forehead,” he said. “She left the house alive.”

Semen found on Mendez’s leg was not Alcantar’s, according to DNA tests. Those tests showed that Mendez, whom Lipson said occasionally worked as a prostitute, had sexual relations in the 72 hours prior to her death, but not with Alcantar.

Mendez, who had four children, was also seriously intoxicated and was not headed to call police, Lipson said.

At the time of her death, her blood-alcohol level was 0.22%, nearly three times the legal limit for driving.

The trial will continue this morning in front of Judge Herbert Curtis.