Conviction Upheld in Costa Mesa Dismemberment

A state appeals court has upheld a second-degree murder conviction and lengthy prison sentence of a Costa Mesa woman who killed her newlywed husband, chopped up his body and cooked parts of it in what justices described as a honeymoon that “ended as dramatically as any in American legal history.”

In a 27-page opinion issued Tuesday, the 4th District Court of Appeal rejected arguments that Omaima Nelson had been wrongfully denied a chance to pursue an insanity defense. The 25-year-old woman had entered only a plea of not guilty to the charges and had been properly involved in making that decision, according to the decision, written by Justice William Bedsworth.

The court also ruled that Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald was correct in allowing jurors to see gruesome photos and a videotape of the crime scene, as well as semi-nude photos of Nelson taken shortly before the killing. Prosecutors had said the evidence was needed to explain witness testimony and challenge Nelson’s contention that her husband physically abused her.

Nelson, who maintained she killed her husband over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1991 because she could no longer endure his physical and sexual abuse, was sentenced last March to 27 years to life in prison.

She was convicted of second-degree murder for killing William Nelson, 56, in a Costa Mesa apartment the newlyweds shared. She then skinned the torso, boiled the head and fried the hands in oil, according to trial testimony.

Nelson had also told a therapist that she had feasted on some of her husband’s body parts, although she later denied that.

Nelson, a native of Egypt and a former model, told jurors that her husband of four weeks was raping her when she killed him in self-defense. By her own accounts, Nelson said she was the victim of horrendous abuse as a child and was repeatedly molested, beaten and subjected to unanesthetized circumcision, according to the appellate decision.

But during her trial, prosecutors depicted Nelson as a predator who stalked men and traded sex for money and drugs. In addition to the second-degree murder charge, Nelson was convicted of assaulting a former boyfriend in 1990 by tying him up and demanding money at gunpoint.

In a court-ordered sentencing report, Costa Mesa Police Officer Robert B. Phillips had said: “Omaima Nelson is the most bizarre and sick individual I’ve had the occasion to meet. No one needs to look to the Dahmers of Milwaukee or the Hannibal Lecters of the screen. A new predator has emerged, named Omaima.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Randolph J. Pawloski, the prosecutor in the case, called the appellate decision a “credit” to the way Judge Fitzgerald handled the trial.

The defense “raised every possible issue you could think of,” he said.

Nelson had also raised other issues involving evidence, jury instructions and her sentence.

Terrence V. Scott, a Los Angeles attorney appointed by the state to represent Nelson in her appeal, could not be reached for comment.