Santa Ana : Man Is Arrested in Two Santa Cruz Deaths

A Santa Ana man has been arrested in connection with the slayings of his estranged wife and her lover in Santa Cruz.

Francisco Antonio Varela, 27, was arrested in the alley in the 1400 block of North Durant Street about 9 p.m. Thursday after police received a report of a commotion. Officers said they found Varela alone, yelling at apartments facing the alley.

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

Prowley and Varela, who had been married since 1980, were in the process of divorce and had been separated for 5 months, police said. Varela often visited Prowley at her apartment, where the two had once lived, and worked at odd jobs around the apartment complex where Prowley was the manager.

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 5 miles north of Santa Cruz, before the slayings.

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

Evidence in the apartment led police to Varela, Haebe said.

Varela, who is being held in Orange County Jail, is expected to be returned to Santa Cruz to face murder charges.