Man Kills Girlfriend, Hangs Self in Front of Child

A domestic dispute ended in death this week when a man repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend before plunging the knife into his own chest and then hanging himself in front of the couple’s 18-month-old daughter, authorities said Tuesday.

The man, a recent immigrant, was dead by the time authorities arrived Monday night at the small garage he had been renting for the last few weeks. Authorities withheld the names of the couple, describing them only as Latinos in their 20s.

Despite multiple stab wounds, the woman was conscious enough to tell police that her boyfriend was her attacker. She was taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, where she was listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday evening.

Neighbors along the 2800 block of South N Street, where the incident occurred, said they first noticed something was wrong just after 9 p.m. Monday, when they heard a woman crying, followed by the screams of a baby.

Angelica Medina, who lives next door, said her husband, Pedro, was watching television, when he heard a woman yelling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Pedro Medina said he and his father-in-law went next door to investigate the noise, which seemed to come from the garage.

A resident of the house, who asked not to be identified, said he had been renting out his garage as a bedroom to an immigrant who identified himself only as Saul. “Saul” had knocked on the resident’s door a few weeks before looking for help, he said. He told the resident he had arrived in the United States from Mexico a few months earlier and was living on the street.

“He said he didn’t have anybody, that he had no place to go,” the resident said. “He said, ‘Can you help me?’ ”

But the resident said he was not aware of a woman or child living there. “I knew we didn’t have a baby in the garage,” he said.

A recent immigrant from Central America himself, the resident said he was touched by the man’s plea and agreed to rent him the garage for $150 a month.

“Feelings are feelings, and I know where they are coming from,” said the resident, who added that he also tried to find work for the man.

Eventually the man got a job at a local carwash and worked a bit as a strawberry picker, according to the resident and the police.

But the resident said he never saw his tenant’s girlfriend or heard the couple’s child until that night.

As Pedro Medina and the resident spoke Monday night, cries from the baby became louder. Then a woman’s voice rang out.

“She was saying, ‘Help me, help me,’ ” the resident said.

The woman’s cries frightened him, but he ran toward the garage anyway, he said.

“I was nervous,” he said, “but I knew I had to open the door, because she needed help. I thought, she could die.”

He kicked open the garage door and found the woman lying still, but conscious, on the ground, a pool of blood beneath her. A man was hanging from the ceiling, he said, blood staining his chest. On the floor was a little girl, in tears.

The woman cried, “Call my sister,” the resident said. Instead, he called 91, and a dispatcher told him to cover the woman’s wounds with a wet towel. He did so and waited for police to arrive.

Oxnard Police Sgt. Lee Wilcox said the motive for the violence is unknown. Authorities had not been to the residence before on a domestic-violence call, he said.