Woman to Be Tried in Dismemberment of Costa Mesa Man : Crime: Attorney for alleged killer says she was defending herself after being tied, raped.

A Municipal Court judge ordered a Costa Mesa woman Friday to be tried for murder after hearing testimony from a friend that she confessed to fatally stabbing her common-law husband, then rinsed his dismembered body parts in a bathtub before wrapping them up in newspaper.

The defendant, Omaima Aree Nelson, 23, then offered the friend, Jose Alfredo Esquivel, $75,000 to help tidy up her bloody Costa Mesa apartment and dispose of William E. Nelson’s hewed corpse, Esquivel testified Friday in Harbor Municipal Court.

“She said I was to dispose of the head, the dentures, so that there wouldn’t be any trace to make out who it was,” Esquivel recounted in a courtroom half filled with curious spectators.

Judge Susanne S. Shaw said that based upon such testimony, there is “probable cause” to bind Nelson, who also goes by the name of Omayma Aref Stainbrook, over for trial.

Nelson, an Egyptian national who immigrated to this country in 1986, was arrested Dec. 2 and charged with murder in the slaying of the 56-year-old man she said she had married in Arizona. Police said she killed and dismembered William Nelson, then stuffed his body parts into several trash bags.

However, her attorney, Deputy Public Defender Thomas G. Mooney, contended that William Nelson raped his client that night and that she killed him in self-defense.

“I’m not going to go into any specifics of the defense,” Mooney said outside of court. “But the evidence presented by the (prosecution) showed that Omaima Nelson killed William Nelson during the rape.”

If convicted, Nelson would face 25 years to life in state prison. She remains in Orange County Jail without bail and has been ordered to return to Superior Court on April 21 for arraignment.

On Friday, Nelson, wearing a black halter top under a white jacket with matching skirt, sat and listened grimly as Deputy Dist. Atty. Randolph J. Pawloski presented his evidence.

At one point, tears welled up in her eyes when Esquivel recounted that she had told him that she had been raped.

Esquivel testified that Nelson frantically knocked on his door in December and asked him hysterically for help.

She tearfully told him how William Nelson had tied her hands and ankles to the bed and raped her at knifepoint, Esquivel said.

Nelson told Esquivel that she broke loose, grabbed a bedside lamp and smacked William Nelson over the head, Esquivel testified.

“She said he fell over and was unconscious and that she picked up the tool he had used (to threaten her during the rape) and cut him,” Esquivel said, moving his hand up and down in a slashing motion.

“She said that she had chopped him up in pieces and that his head was in the refrigerator,” Esquivel testified.

Nelson’s former live-in boyfriend, Richard S. Gray of Anaheim, also testified that she came to his apartment that morning and told him that she had killed her husband.

She did not go into details, Gray said, other than that she had been “tied and beaten and raped.”

Nelson originally also faced three other felony charges in an unrelated case, but they were dismissed by Shaw. Pawloski had alleged that Nelson tied up Robert Hannson, a former boyfriend, and demanded money at gunpoint. Pawloski filed charges of assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and attempted robbery in the November, 1990, incident in Huntington Beach.

On Friday, Hannson sheepishly testified that he willingly allowed Nelson to bind his hands with his necktie for what he thought would be sexual purposes. But then, he told the court, “she pulled out a gun” and demanded money.

Hannson said he laughed at her request, then became afraid. Finally, he freed himself and took the gun from Nelson. He then returned the gun to her, he said, without checking to see whether it was loaded.

Judge Shaw said she found Hannson and his testimony “inherently unbelievable . . . and unbelievably incredible” and dropped the assault charges because she did not think he truly felt “the force of the fear” during that incident.

“I’m not an expert on sexual bondage . . . but, (Hannson) said he was voluntarily tied up for sexual purposes,” the judge said.