15 Years of Violence Preceded Man’s Death

The marriage of Pedro Alba Barragan and Gladis Barreras Soto was a domestic battleground punctuated with charges and countercharges of abuse and violence that culminated in Barragan’s slaying and dismemberment, according to court records and police.

The 37-year-old mother of five was scheduled to appear in court this week on charges that in January, she tried to ram her car into a van carrying her husband and the woman with whom she thought he was having an affair.

Friends of Barragan described Soto as a jealous woman who threatened to poison her husband if he did not mend his ways.

But Soto has told police she was the victim of 15 years of infidelity and physical abuse. Pushed to the limit, she said, she finally reached for a handgun after her husband fell asleep early Saturday and shot him in the head, according to police accounts.

Jorge Alvarado, the Oxnard attorney representing Soto in the assault case, said his client was a classic battered wife.

“I have no doubt in my mind that there was a long history of both physical and psychological abuse by him against her,” Alvarado said. “I think it’s clear that a woman would not act out like this unless driven to it by his conduct.”

The district attorney’s office formally filed murder charges against Soto on Wednesday.

On Sunday, a woman was seen setting fire to a trash bag near the Ventura Beach RV Park. A park security guard who put out the flames saw body parts inside and called police.

On Tuesday, after Barragan’s body was identified by fingerprints, police went to the the family’s modest apartment in a working-class section of western Ventura. Soto was arrested after police found the torso of her husband’s body in the garage. The body had been dismembered with an electric table saw, police said.

Times staff writers Fred Alvarez and Daryl Kelley contributed to this story.