LOCAL : Santa Ana Man Seized in Hacking Deaths of Estranged Wife, Lover

A Santa Ana man was arrested on suspicion of hacking to death his estranged wife and her lover in Santa Cruz.

Francisco Antonio Varela, 27, was arrested in the alley in the 1400 block of N. Durant Street in Santa Ana at about 9 p.m. Thursday after police received a report of a commotion. Police said they found Varela alone, shouting toward apartments facing the alley.

Santa Cruz police said Varela is suspected of slaying Barbara Prowley, 38, and Rogelio Conejo, 22, on Feb. 20 at Prowley’s apartment in the Beach Flats area of Santa Cruz, upon finding the two in bed. They had been severely chopped with a “brush hook,” a gardening tool with a curved blade.

Prowley and Varela, who had been married since 1980, were in the process of divorce and had been separated for five months, police said.

Sgt. Joe Haebe, a Santa Cruz police spokesman, said Varela was “very jealous of his wife seeing other men during their separation. We think it’s a crime of passion and rage.”

Santa Ana police said Varela gave as his address a home on South Flower Street in Santa Ana. But Santa Cruz police said that Varela had been living in a trailer with his brother in Scotts Valley, about five miles north of Santa Cruz, before the slayings.