Woman’s Rape, Death Not Tied, O.C. Jury Finds

A Stanton dishwasher accused of “killing the spirit” of an ailing 79-year-old woman was acquitted of murder Tuesday, but found guilty of rape and other sexual assault charges.

After deliberating three days, a Superior Court jury unanimously rejected a novel prosecution theory that Jose Alonso Garcia, 20, was responsible for the death of Mary Ward, who died a month after Garcia raped her in 1992.

The prosecution contended that the rape sapped Ward’s will to live and hastened her death.

But the defense called the case “voodoo” and an attorney for the Mexican government protested that Garcia was being used as a guinea pig for an experimental murder theory because he is an illegal immigrant.

Jurors said they were horrified by the attack on an elderly woman, but they could not find a link between the rape and her death a month later. Testimony in the trial showed that Ward was sick with cancer and other ailments before the attack. “We all pretty much agreed her cancer was terminal. The rape did not cause the cancer or her death,” Juror Myra Duvall, a Fullerton saleswoman, said.

Juror Marcia Last said, “We’re all very sure the rape affected her mentally in a very bad way, but we couldn’t find how her mental state caused her death.”

The jury found Garcia guilty of rape, along with five counts of sexual assault. He faces up to 40 years in prison when he is sentenced May 10 by Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno.

Garcia bowed his head as the verdict was read. He showed no emotion when an interpreter translated the verdict into Spanish.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. LaBahn expressed disappointment with the verdict.

“You have a 79-year-old woman who is raped and dies a month later and the doctors say it contributed to her death. I thought we had a good case,” LaBahn said.

Deputy Public Defender David Biggs said he was pleased with the verdict because jurors were able to wade through reams of medical documents to discover there was no proof of murder.

Biggs said the prosecution’s assertion that Ward died from the loss of a will to live was “about 10 to 15 years ahead of its time. There’s just not enough medical proof for this type of thing in the legal arena yet. Maybe one day, but not today.”

Duvall said she, too, questioned how the case ever got past the Orange County Grand Jury.

“I’m actually surprised it ever made it this far. Maybe it’s because everyone is up in arms about crime, they wanted to try this case as a murder,” Duvall said.

The prosecution sought to prove during the monthlong trial that Garcia’s attack murdered Ward by killing her desire to live.

In May, 1992, Ward, a widow who lived alone, heard someone swimming in the pool at her Stanton apartment at 2:30 a.m. She told Garcia to leave but instead he followed her into her house. Garcia, who was drunk at the time, has admitted to raping Ward.

Although Ward had lung cancer at the time of the rape, and the official cause of death was congenital heart failure, prosecutors said the assault triggered humiliation, depression and “post-traumatic stress” that worsened Ward’s health and contributed to her death.

Before the 1992 attack, Ward was a “feisty and energetic” woman who helped manage an apartment building, LaBahn said. Afterward, she became withdrawn and despondent and “lost her desire to live.”

The case was slammed as “voodoo” by defense attorneys and criticized as racist by a Mexican government official, who accused prosecutors of turning Garcia into a legal “guinea pig” because he is Latino and an illegal immigrant.

Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia had argued that the prosecution could never prove the connection between the rape and the death. Instead, Gumlia told jurors, the prosecution overwhelmed jurors with the horror of the rape by repeatedly playing Ward’s frantic 911 call, relied on testimony of doctors who had no knowledge of Ward’s medical history, and then glossed over the specifics of her death.

Ruben J. L. Salgado, a lawyer who represented the Mexican Consulate at the trial, said he was pleased with the verdict and the message it sent.

“The fact that Mr. Garcia is an undocumented alien from Mexico who can’t speak English doesn’t mean he can be used as a guinea pig in a new legal theory,” Salgado said.

Salgado said Garcia “felt very good” about the verdict. “He’s still very remorseful about it,” Salgado said. “He still says he doesn’t remember what happened on the night of the rape.”