Suspect to Be Tried in Girl’s Slaying

VENTURA —  David Alvarez on Thursday was ordered to stand trial on charges that he strangled Oak View teenager Kali Manley during a sexual assault last winter.

“This young lady was in a fight,” said Superior Court Judge James P. Cloninger. “She struggled. The evidence shows the defendant was the person she struggled with.”

The bruised and naked body of Kali, a 14-year-old Nordhoff High School freshman, was uncovered inside a drain pipe in the mountains above Ojai on Dec. 26, 1998, a week after she was reported missing from a girlfriend’s house.

Evidence presented this week at Alvarez’s preliminary hearing showed that around midnight Kali left the house with him and another man, neither of whom she knew. They bought wine coolers at a convenience store and then went to the defendant’s trailer.

There, the girl and Alvarez retreated to a back bedroom with the beverages. She was never seen alive again and Alvarez eventually led authorities to her corpse.

Although the medical examiner found no signs of sexual trauma or sperm during an autopsy, state prosecutors argued that the teenager was choked to death while trying to defend herself against Alvarez’s sexual advances.

Standing outside the courtroom, defense attorney James M. Farley expressed disappointment, saying he plans to file a motion to dismiss the attempted rape charge and a special allegation that make his 22-year-old client eligible for the death penalty.

“There is absolutely no evidence of an attempted, forcible rape,” Farley said, citing testimony by the county medical examiner.

The judge said bruises, broken fingernails and scrapes found on the girl’s body suggest Alvarez attempted to force sex with her and she tried to stop him.

He then ordered Alvarez to stand trial on charges of murder and attempted rape, as well as the special allegation that Manley was murdered during the commission of an attempted rape.