Faces 11 Years in Prison for Beating : Mother Pleads Guilty in Death of Baby

An 18-year-old Oceanside mother pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter in connection with the beating death of her baby boy, whose battered and diaper-clad body was found stuffed in a paper bag inside a trash bin last May.

In a settlement with prosecutors who had initially sought a murder conviction, Josephine Mesa acknowledged that she bludgeoned 23-month-old Paul Anthony Mesa to death with the handle of a household drain plunger.

Her husband, Marine Lance Cpl. Paul Mesa, 20, pleaded guilty to charges of being an accessory to murder after the fact, admitting that he lied to police in an effort to cover up for his wife after the boy’s body was discovered by two men rummaging for aluminum cans in the dumpster near the couple’s Oceanside apartment.

North County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares ordered Josephine Mesa held for sentencing on Feb. 24, while her husband is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 9. She faces 11 years in prison. Paul Mesa, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton when the incident occurred, could receive three years in prison.

“I think it’s a reasonable disposition for the case, even though the circumstances were so horrendous and the conduct of both defendants after the fact surely indicates they didn’t feel remorse,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Sally Penso.

John Jimenez, attorney for Josephine Mesa, said he felt prosecutors agreed to the plea bargain only after reports by a court-appointed psychologist and independent experts indicated that the young woman was insane at the time of the crime.

“They saw that it was going to be real tough to prove any sort of premeditation or malice,” Jimenez said.

During months of legal maneuverings after the crime, Jimenez sought to portray Josephine Mesa as a victim of almost constant physical and mental abuse since her youth. She was raped at knifepoint at 11 by her mother’s boyfriend, and was raped and beaten by two half-brothers in the years that followed, according to court documents. At the age of 15, Jimenez said, she sought refuge in marriage.

In May, nine months’ pregnant, Josephine Mesa caught her young son drinking from the toilet. It angered her and she picked up a plunger and hit him repeatedly with the wooden handle.

“She just had an emotional breakdown,” said Robert Gusky, the defense attorney who represented Paul Mesa. “The boy did something wrong and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She went out of her head for a period of time.”

When the boy’s body was discovered a few days later, police began a door-to-door search for the child’s parents. Josephine Mesa denied the dead baby belonged to her.

Police, however, grew suspicious and asked the woman to come to the station for questioning. As detectives peppered her with questions, Mesa began experiencing labor pains. She confessed to killing the child and was rushed to Tri-City Medical Center, where she gave birth to a boy.

Both the infant and a 3-year-old boy born to the couple before they were married are with foster parents.

After Josephine Mesa was taken into custody, her husband was also arrested in connection with the slaying. Police had shown Paul Mesa a photograph of his son, but the Marine corporal denied it was his boy.

The Marine first learned of the boy’s death while driving with his wife to the police station, according to Gusky.

Gusky argued that Paul Mesa had lied to police simply to cover for his wife, but did not participate in the beating. The young Marine was at work when the beating occurred, and Josephine Mesa explained away the boy’s disappearance by telling her husband that the county adoption agency had picked him up, Gusky said.

The attorney said the Mesas had for several months been considering putting their boys up for adoption. One month before the death of her son, Josephine Mesa had sought help from the county’s Child Protective Services. A social worker who visited the couple’s apartment found Mesa to be “isolated and lonely,” but the county agency did not follow up immediately, choosing instead to wait until the new baby was born.

Although Paul Mesa was arrested originally as an accessory to the crime, prosecutors later changed the charge to murder after two jail inmates claimed they heard the young Marine make incriminating statements. Gusky said the inmates were simply trying to get back at Mesa because he refused to give them cigarettes.

Penso said prosecutors agreed to let Paul Mesa plead guilty to the lesser charge after reviewing a secret tape recording that was made of his conversation while alone with his wife in a room at the police station.

“On the basis of that conversation, it was quite obvious to the prosecutor that Paul Mesa was learning the details of what happened from Josephine for the first time,” Gusky said.

Several months after her arrest, Josephine Mesa filed for divorce from her husband.