Jury Deadlocks Over Whether Man Murdered Daughter

A jury was unable to decide Thursday whether a Santa Ana print shop worker molested and murdered his baby daughter, although it acquitted him on one charge of sexual abuse.

Jurors deliberated for about a week, but said they ultimately did not have enough evidence to convict Jorge Perez, who had tearfully denied from jail abusing or killing his 8-month-old daughter, Kenya. They deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of acquittal on the murder charge, and 7 to 5 in favor of acquittal on a molestation count.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard M. Aronson ordered Perez back to court on Friday, where the judge will decide what happens next in the case.

“Hopefully it’s all over, but we’ll find out on Friday,” Perez’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Dan Bates, said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Camille Hill said she was disappointed with the deadlock, but believes jurors did the best they could.

“We felt it was very important to let a jury make that tough decision,” she said.

Perez, 36, was arrested soon after the Nov. 18, 1994, suffocation of his youngest daughter in the rented room where he lived with his family.

The defendant contended he took a nap with Kenya that afternoon, but said she had vanished when he woke up about an hour later. He said when he got out of bed to see if a housemate had picked up the baby, he saw her body plunged head first into an empty bucket used as a clothes hamper.

The defense contended the baby accidentally fell in the bucket and suffocated, and said someone else could have caused the molestation injuries.

Relatives described Perez as a caring father, and his wife stood by him during the trial. But authorities said his statements about the death were inconsistent, and Hill said the baby’s injuries indicated she suffocated outside the bucket.