Man Pleads Not Guilty in Nadia Puente Death

A Los Angeles man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he raped and killed a 9-year-old Santa Ana girl last March.

But the attorney for Richard Lucio DeHoyos, 31, said his client may change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity after psychological evaluations are completed.

“You’ve got a man who’s never been in any trouble with the law, who served in the military,” defense attorney Milton C. Grimes said in an interview. “He lost his job. He wasn’t acting completely rationally.”

DeHoyos is being held without bail in Orange County Jail on charges of murder, rape, attempted rape, kidnaping, sodomy and child molestation. He was arrested in April for the slaying of Nadia Puente, who was found dead March 21, one day after she had disappeared while walking home from school. Her body was stuffed into a trash can in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park.

DeHoyos was born in San Antonio, Tex., but moved to California, holding different jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties. At one point, he joined the military and was stationed in Panama, where he went absent without leave, Grimes said. He added that he did not know if his client was discharged honorably after three years of service.

He was arrested in San Antonio. While in custody there, DeHoyos told television and newspaper reporters that he had killed the girl by drowning her in a bathtub at a Santa Ana hotel. He blamed cocaine and his anger at losing his job.

Just before the girl had disappeared, DeHoyos had been fired from a Taco Bell restaurant, Grimes said.

But Grimes discounted the confession and said DeHoyos may have been mentally disturbed at the time he spoke to journalists.

“There are some serious mental questions that need to be answered,” Grimes said.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office determined the cause of death was asphyxiation due to a compressed chest, not drowning.