Trial Begins in Death of Musician’s Wife

A year after the disappearance of Sandra Rosas, wife of Los Lobos lead singer Cesar Rosas, her half brother went on trial in her murder and kidnapping--a crime prosecutors say was motivated by the suspect’s fear he might lose his “meal ticket.”

Although her body has never been found, prosecutors say her abandoned, bloodstained van was located in La Puente.

The trial of Gabriel Gomez, 40, began Monday in Pomona Superior Court with testimony from the dead woman’s eldest daughter.

Amber Steljes, 29, told jurors that she came home Oct. 23, 1999, to discover shattered glass from her mother’s van in the driveway and the front door to their Rowland Heights house wide open.

Steljes said she called her mother’s cellular phone and overheard an apparent conversation between Gomez and her 47-year-old mother.

“You can never leave me,” Steljes testified she heard Gomez say. “I’m going to make mad, passionate love to you. I’m going to rape you. Then I’m going to strangle you.”

Steljes said she heard “gestures in the background,” which she recognized as noises coming from her mother.

Steljes told jurors her mother hated Gomez because “he wouldn’t change. . . . He’d come over unannounced, she’d push him away.”

The dead woman’s 12-year-old daughter, Victoria, testified that she listened to the same phone call and heard Gomez cursing and threatening to strangle her mother. Victoria said she had called her mother earlier and heard Gomez and her mother arguing.

In opening statements, Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald Clem told jurors that Gomez killed his half sister out of “hatred and dislike.” Clem said Gomez considered her a “meal ticket” that was “slipping away.’

Officials said the missing woman, who was an adopted child, met her half brother during a search for her birth family. Clem told jurors she took Gomez into her home and tried to help him financially.

“Sandra’s generosity is what got her kidnapped and murdered,” Clem said.

Clem said Gomez kidnapped her Oct. 23, 1999, from her home, then killed her. The details of the purported murder are unknown but Clem told jurors he would present DNA evidence showing that Gomez’s blood was found in the woman’s abandoned van.

Gomez’s attorney, Antonio Bestard, told jurors his client “may have been one of the last people to see Sandra Rosas alive, but he certainly was not the last.”