MOORPARK : Judge Rules Evidence of Beating Relevant

A Ventura County Superior Court jury will be allowed to hear testimony suggesting that a Moorpark man on trial for his wife’s murder beat the woman routinely and showing that she twice went to court to keep him away.

The jury also will be able to view graphic crime-scene photographs in the trial of 38-year-old auto mechanic James M. Linkenauger, a judge ruled Monday. The trial is to begin today.

Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. ruled that Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy may introduce evidence that JoAnn Linkenauger twice sought restraining orders from the courts to keep her husband from beating her.

Campbell also ruled that witnesses will be allowed to testify that they saw bruises on the victim’s body on at least three occasions prior to the Jan. 17 killing.

Photographs depicting the victim after she was dumped in a roadside ravine and information about the defendant’s history of violence against his wife would not unduly prejudice the jury against Linkenauger, Campbell said.

The woman’s half-naked, badly beaten body was positioned in the muddy ditch to make the victim appear “as demeaned in death as (Linkenauger) attempted to demean her in life,” Hardy told Campbell.

Over defense attorney Louis B. Samonsky Jr.’s objections, Campbell said verbal descriptions could not take the place of the photographs.

“Although they are graphic and disturbing, they tend to show several things that can’t be described adequately,” Campbell said. “They show the state of mind of the person who left her there.”

The 39-year-old woman, who married Linkenauger in 1990 and moved from West Virginia to Ventura County two years ago, was killed Jan. 17 after she returned home from a weekend in Las Vegas with friends, prosecutors said.