Police Seek Slashing Victim’s Husband

A Huntington Park woman whose face and body were brutally slashed two weeks ago emerged from her protected hiding place Friday to appeal for public help in locating her husband, whom authorities are seeking in the attack.

Maria del Carmen Ochoa, 25, has been in hiding as part of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s witness protection program since the Jan. 12 attack, which police described as “a fit of jealous rage” by Arturo Ochoa, her husband of five years.

She said he told her: “I am going to spare your life, but I am going to mark you so you’ll never have a husband again.”

After the attack, she was hospitalized for five days, and now she and her two children, girls aged 3 and 5, are in protective custody at separate locations, authorities said.

But Arturo Ochoa, 29, has since made threatening phone calls to her family members in an attempt to learn her whereabouts, Sheriff’s Department Detective Elizabeth Mackey said.

“I have never seen any case quite like this before . . . not in this magnitude before,” said Mackey, who is investigating the case. “This is far beyond wife abuse.”

Maria Ochoa appeared Friday at the Temple City substation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Her face was crisscrossed with scars. On her hands, she wore huge bandages that made it impossible for her to wipe away her tears as she spoke. An interpreter did it for her.

Speaking in Spanish, Ochoa gave this account: She said the incident occurred as she was driving with her husband from her job as an office clerk in El Monte. The two were talking about the divorce she had sought for more than a year when Arturo Ochoa asked his wife to pull over. When the car stopped, Ochoa said, her husband pulled a butcher knife from under the seat and began slashing her face. He also cut her arms and hands as she raised them to protect herself, pushed her from the car and drove off.

A passing motorist saw her in the street and stopped to help.

Arturo Ochoa has not returned to the couple’s Huntington Park apartment since the incident, authorities said. But they believe that he is in the Los Angeles area.

Sheriff’s deputies are seeking Arturo Ochoa on charges of aggravated mayhem. A warrant for his arrest has been issued.

Mackey said authorities decided on charges of aggravated mayhem instead of assault with a deadly weapon because the attack involved permanent disfigurement to the victim. The more serious mayhem charge allows a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.

Ochoa and her two children will eventually receive assistance from the district attorney’s endangered witness program in relocating to a permanent residence, officials said.

Authorities at the press conference asked that anyone who knows of Arturo Ochoa’s whereabouts call 911.

Times staff writer Jesse Katz contributed to this story.