Mother, Daughter Held in Man’s Fatal Beating

Investigators following “a trail of blood” have arrested a Santa Ana woman and her teen-age daughter on suspicion of beating a man to death and stuffing his body in a shopping cart, police said Wednesday.

Mary Rivas Carrillo, 37, of 1135 S. Parton St., was being held on $250,000 bail at the Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder, detectives said.

They said her daughter, Arlene M. Aguirre, 18, a clerk at a blood bank, was being held at the jail in lieu of $10,000 bail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Both women were arrested at their home and booked into the jail at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

The victim of the Monday night beating, a Latino man between 25 and 35 years old, has not been identified, said Santa Ana Police Sgt. John McClain. He said an autopsy showed the man died of massive head injuries.

Police believe Carrillo met the man Monday night at a local tavern and returned to her home with him. An argument broke out about 10 p.m. in the woman’s home, and the victim was allegedly beaten over the head with a baseball bat and a 2 1/2-foot-long galvanized pipe, McClain said. He declined to discuss the reason for the fight.

Carrillo’s other three daughters, ages 12, 13 and 14, were reportedly in the home during the beating but were not participants, McClain said.

A resident in the 1200 block of South Shelton Street--about two-fifths of a mile away --discovered the man’s body about 10:45 p.m. stuffed into a shopping cart. The body was partially wrapped in a blanket, McClain said.

“There was a blood trail that led from (near) the cart to the driveway of the arrestees’ house,” McClain said. “So our investigators followed the blood trail to the house, talked to the woman there and subsequently arrested her and her oldest daughter.” Police said the woman’s three younger daughters were taken to the Albert Sitton Home, the county’s shelter for abandoned and abused children.

The unemployed Carrillo is 5-foot-4 and weighs 175 pounds, police said.

Investigators on Wednesday were still trying to identify the victim, who, at 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds, “was a small man,” McClain said.

Carrillo and her daughter were to be arraigned today in Orange County Central Municipal Court.