Murder Added to Charge of Rape : Law: An elderly woman was so distraught after the attack that she died a month later, prosecutors say, so her alleged assailant is also charged in her death.

A young man charged with raping and assaulting a 79-year-old Stanton woman has also been charged with her murder--and possibly faces the death penalty--because the woman later lost her will to live as a result of the attack and died, prosecutors said Saturday.

Mary Lee Ward was a “feisty, grandmotherly type” who refused to let age catch up with her when she was attacked about 2:30 a.m. on May 22, 1992, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David La Bahn.

Jose Alonso Garcia, 19, was in the midst of raping her when Orange County sheriff’s deputies arrested him, prosecutors have charged.

Hours after the attack, Ward told a therapist she could not go on with her life after being so violently violated in her own home, said La Bahn. She never returned to her apartment and died a month later, he said.

“Certainly she was elderly, but she wasn’t a woman who was about to die in one month,” said La Bahn, who said he sought a murder indictment against Garcia after reviewing medical documents.

Garcia was indicted Thursday on the murder charges and is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 10. in Orange County Superior Court. Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the sexual assault charges.

La Bahn said he is preparing for a legal battle with Garcia’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia, who has already indicated he believes the murder indictment amounts to an exaggerated charge and his client should only face trial on the rape charges.

Gumlia could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Ward was found to have lung cancer a week before her death and had begun chemotherapy treatments, but La Bahn said he feels Ward ultimately died from a combination of the trauma and depression that set in after the assault.

“I believe that, but for that rape, she would have continued living more than one month,” said La Bahn. The case is unusual because there is typically a more direct link between an attack and a resulting death, he said.

“The injuries she sustained hastened her death,” he contends.

La Bahn said the sexual assault and murder charges make Garcia eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the death penalty.

The incident began when Ward, an apartment manager, heard Garcia in the apartment complex pool. Ward did not recognize Garcia as an apartment resident and ordered him to leave, La Bahn said.

Ward returned to her apartment and dialed 911 and was followed inside by Garcia, the prosecutor said. Her cries for help during the assault were recorded by the emergency operator.

La Bahn said a feeble woman about to die would not be so bold as to confront a strange man in the middle of the night, and her actions show the type of woman that Ward was until the attack.

“She lost her will to live,” La Bahn said.