VENTURA COUNTY ROUNDUP : VENTURA : Women Testify in Strangling Trial

Testimony continued Tuesday in the Ventura County Superior Court trial of a 53-year-old transient accused of strangling his homeless girlfriend and leaving her body on the campus of a Ventura elementary school.

Jose Garcia faces a charge of murder in the 1997 slaying of Marsha Lane, 41, whom Garcia had dated for a year.

Several of Garcia’s previous girlfriends testified Garcia had battered and choked them during their relationships with him.

A former Ventura resident told jurors her two-year romance with Garcia that ended in 1994 was mostly abusive. She said Garcia once grabbed her by the throat during an argument.

“I don’t recall if it was one hand or two,” she testified. “He was pushing me against the door of the house.”

The woman testified Garcia tightened his hold on her throat, choking her until she could not speak. She did not lose consciousness because he eventually stopped, she said.

On another occasion, the woman testified, Garcia had threatened to kill her.

On cross-examination, she told jurors she and Garcia had attended grade school together and years later struck up a romance.

She said they lived together for a while in Ventura, and later she moved to Oxnard by herself. After their relationship ended, she said, she allowed Garcia to sometimes sleep in her car.

Another woman testified Tuesday that Garcia had beat her while she was pregnant. Garcia is accused of assaulting eight women--his ex-wife, six girlfriends and sister--over a 33-year span.

Although Garcia is not charged in those allegations, prosecutors have brought the women to testify to establish a pattern of behavior they contend shows Garcia killed Lane.

Lane, who was also a transient, was found dead on Feb. 18, 1997, in a hallway of Lincoln Elementary School in Ventura. She had been strangled and her body had other bruises, possibly from a struggle, authorities said.