Sanchez’s Past Crimes Cited

Serial rapist Vincent Sanchez turned killer when he chased a woman motorist down a Ventura County freeway, shot her, dragged her away, and tried to rape her before she died, a prosecutor argued Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth told jurors in closing arguments of Sanchez’s murder trial that the rapist was on the hunt for a sex assault victim when 20-year-old Moorpark College student Megan Barroso crossed his path two years ago.

“She was just another victim to him,” the prosecutor argued.

Sanchez, 32, an unemployed handyman previously convicted of 11 sex assaults, is charged with first-degree murder, attempted rape and kidnapping in connection with Barroso’s slaying.

He also faces two special-circumstance allegations that the killing occurred during an attempted rape and kidnapping. If convicted of first-degree murder and at least one of those allegations, he could face a death sentence.

Defense attorneys, who will give their closing arguments today, do not dispute that Sanchez killed Barroso. However, they contend the crime did not involve kidnapping or attempted rape.

Instead, they say, Sanchez killed Barroso during an explosive, drunken rage after a breakup with his girlfriend. At trial, they presented evidence that Sanchez was briefly placed in a mental hospital a few months before the killing.

But during a three-hour presentation, Henke-Dobroth argued that evidence presented during the past 11 weeks overwhelmingly proves Sanchez committed murder, attempted rape and kidnapping.

According to court testimony, Barroso, a Moorpark resident, left a friend’s house in Newbury Park about 2:45 a.m. on July 5, 2001. That night, Sanchez’s estranged girlfriend was visiting a sister in the same neighborhood.

It is the prosecution’s theory that Sanchez was prowling those streets in the early-morning hours and spotted Barroso as she headed home.

Based on damage to her car, prosecutors contended Sanchez sideswiped her as she drove, then fired an assault rifle into the rear passenger door, shattering the window.

Under the same theory, Sanchez exited the Moorpark Freeway before Barroso and jumped out of his truck with his gun as she stopped at the same off-ramp he had taken. He then stepped in front of her car and began firing.

A data recorder recovered from the vehicle showed Barroso floored the gas pedal and sped off. A ballistics expert testified that as she headed home, Sanchez continued firing.

He squeezed off six shots. The last one pierced the driver-side door, hitting her in the lower abdomen.

When the car swerved to a stop on the median of New Los Angeles Avenue, Sanchez pulled out Barroso, bleeding from cuts to her hand and the gunshot wound to her stomach.

Then he took her to an unknown spot where he sexually assaulted her before she died, the prosecutor said.

“The defendant was not intending to kill Ms. Barroso,” Henke-Dobroth argued. Instead, he wanted to stop her so he could kidnap and rape her as he had done with other women in the past, she said.

The prosecutor argued that Sanchez’s actions and demeanor prove he was not suicidal or emotionally unstable that night, as the defense has suggested.

As the prosecutor spoke, Sanchez sat hunched over the defense table taking notes, as he has done throughout much of the trial. He rarely looked up as Henke-Dobroth showed jurors pictures of Barroso and other victims.

The prosecutor urged jurors to compare Barroso’s killing to Sanchez’s prior crimes, arguing that his violent disposition and desire to control and rape women is evident in the sexual assaults for which he already had been convicted.

Many of those assaults, dating from 1996 to 2001, involved threats of violence. They occurred in the early-morning hours, and on several occasions Sanchez forced victims to drive with him to other locations such as his home or, in one instance, a field, where rapes occurred.

In October 1999, Sanchez kidnapped a 20-year-old woman from her driveway, took her to his Simi Valley residence and videotaped himself raping her as she screamed in pain. Jurors watched the tape during trial.

Four months later, in February 2000, Sanchez slipped into the residence of a 34-year-old woman and waited for her. When she came home, she heard a cellular phone ringing in a closet.

Sanchez jumped out with a knife, and, during their struggle, stabbed her in the leg. He went on to rape her three times as she bled.”Do you see any parallels here?” Henke-Dobroth asked.