D.A. Won’t Seek Death for Suspect in Rape-Murder

Carlos Enrique Ovando, then 23, and the Rev. Joaquin Rodriguez walked into the Anaheim police station at 11 a.m. on Aug. 27, 1985, and the minister told officers the young man wanted to report a crime.

Where?

“Lincoln and Kroeger,” the minister said.

What did Ovando know about it?

He was there to turn himself in, the minister said. He had killed a young woman there the day before.

Testimony in Ovando’s trial, on charges of raping and murdering 24-year-old Rosario Arevalo, is scheduled to begin this week in Westminster before Orange County Superior Court Judge Phillip E. Cox.

Ovando’s confession made the police and prosecutors’ jobs much easier. He also made things easier for himself.

Rape or attempted rape is a special circumstance in California murder law that allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty. But the district attorney’s office has decided against asking for capital punishment in Ovando’s case. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard M. King said that “it’s a fair statement” that Ovando’s confession had a lot to do with prosecutors’ decision not to seek the death penalty.

“It’s a highly unusual case,” said Michael P. Giannini, a supervisor in the public defender’s office, which is representing Ovando. “My understanding is that the police had no clues until he turned himself in. That will have to help his credibility with a jury on his version of events.”

Deputy Public Defender William G. Kelley, Ovando’s trial lawyer, could not be reached for comment. And prosecutor King declined to comment further, except to say that he had no idea what kind of defense Kelley plans.

Ovando was ordered to stand trial in Superior Court after a preliminary hearing in January of 1986. Prosecutors said that testimony from his friends at that hearing showed that he was confused, remorseful and tearful over what had happened.

Arevalo had gone to the La Perla cantina on Lincoln Avenue near Kroeger Street in Anaheim on Aug. 25, 1985. Sometime before 2 a.m. the next morning, she reportedly became rowdy and the cantina’s security guard, Frank Valencia, escorted her outside.

He offered to drive her home, and when she accepted he put her into his car. She locked the door and waited while he returned to the bar.

Valencia testified that when he came out 35 minutes later, the car door was ajar and Arevalo was gone.

Her partially nude body was found at 2:30 p.m. that day in a garage 200 feet from the bar.

Ovando lived two blocks away on Vine Street with a friend, Tito Castaneda, his aunt, Elena Castaneda, and two others. Ovando had lived there about a month and usually slept on the living-room floor.

According to court records, Ovando woke one of the people in the house after 3 a.m. the morning Arevalo was killed, asking to be let inside.

Confessed to Killing

Tito Castaneda testified at the hearing that shortly after 7 a.m., Ovando told him that “he had a very large problem . . . he had killed a girl.”

Elena Castaneda was told about it, and she called Rodriguez, her minister at the Church of the Nazarene in Anaheim. Rodriguez recalled at the hearing that she was frantic and insisted that he come to her house.

The minister testified that he arrived with his wife, Sarah Rodriguez. With her and the Castanedas listening, Ovando told him about killing Arevalo after she rejected his request for either sexual favors or a date and then spit on him and hit him with her shoe, Rodriguez said.

The minister said that it was his idea to go to the police but that Ovando readily agreed.

“I told him that the law will forgive him if he’ll repent--this is what the Bible tells--but he has to pay his due to society,” he said.

There was no testimony at the preliminary hearing that Ovando admitted raping the woman.

Knelt to Pray

The minister said he and Ovando and the others knelt on the floor to pray. Tito Castaneda recalled that Ovando cried. Then he got into the minister’s car, clutching a Bible the minister had given him. With the minister driving, Ovando pointed out a street sign near the site of the crime.

Ovando showed up at the police station with a large cut on his nose and blood still on his shoes that police said matched the victim’s blood.

News spread quickly through police headquarters that someone named Carlos was confessing to a killing.

Two officers were investigating the rape of a woman, who was 8 months pregnant, in Anaheim just four days before. The woman had told police that the man who raped her was named Carlos.

She later identified Ovando as her attacker. She said she had met him several times before and recognized him when he came to the door to see her.

Ovando has been charged with rape in that case.