Murder Charge Filed in Nurse’s Stabbing Death
A murder charge that carries a possible death sentence was filed Tuesday against a construction worker accused of fatally stabbing an emergency-room nurse in her Beverlywood home.
Jose Francisco Guerra, 31, was awaiting arraignment in West Los Angeles Municipal Court. The district attorney’s office charged him with a single murder count plus a special-circumstance allegation--lying in wait--that would qualify him for a possible death sentence if convicted.
Prosecutors said Guerra fatally stabbed Kathleen Powell, a nurse at the Beverly Hills Medical Center, in her house last Thursday. Guerra, who was doing renovation work on the house next to Powell’s, was arrested Friday.
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