Ex-Girlfriend Is Convicted of O.C. Wrestler’s 2003 Murder

A 24-year-old Orange woman was found guilty Monday of luring her former boyfriend -- a high school wrestling star -- to a local lovers’ lane, where he was shot to death and then set afire by her sometime boyfriend.

The seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for just over two days before convicting Veronica Paz of the 2003 murder of Diego Armando Gonzalez, 17, the violent end to a love triangle.

Relatives of the victim, a student at El Modena High School, expressed satisfaction with the verdict, though they regretted that Paz might someday be free.

“She’s rotten inside,” said Veronica Tototzintle, 23, Gonzalez’s cousin. “She has no remorse inside.”

Gonzalez was expecting a romantic rendezvous with Paz when she drove him to a deserted hilltop above Orange about midnight that Nov. 9. But Paz and Brandan Dante Perry, 22, had already planned Gonzalez’s death, Orange County prosecutors had said.

Three months before the killing, Perry and Gonzalez exchanged harsh words at a party where Perry saw Paz and his rival together. The wrestler, a Latino, hurled racial slurs, and one of his friends pulled a gun on Perry, who is black.

Afterward, Perry testified, he bought a .40-caliber handgun, and he and Paz hatched a plan to kill Gonzalez. Prosecutors said Paz was irritated that Gonzalez had returned to a former girlfriend but still called Paz for sex.

Paz’s attorney, Associate Public Defender William G. Kelley, had told jurors that Perry was an obsessive, jealous boyfriend who lied to jurors about Paz’s involvement in the murder. Paz believed Perry and Gonzalez were actually poised to have a fistfight that night, Kelley said.

Perry pleaded guilty in March to shooting Gonzalez twice in the head and setting his body on fire. He agreed to testify against Paz in exchange for a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He will be formally sentenced Sept. 8.

Paz, who had exuded calmness during the trial, looked deeply concerned Monday when she was led into the courtroom before the verdict. She stared straight ahead as the verdict was read.

The jury acquitted Paz of lying in wait, sparing her a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Paz will be sentenced Dec. 1 by Judge James A. Stotler and faces 25 years to life in prison.

About two dozen family members surrounded Gonzalez’s mother and sisters as they cried tears of relief after hearing the guilty verdict.

“No matter what, even though justice was served, I’ll never see my son again,” the victim’s mother, Maria Sanchez-Gonzalez, said in Spanish through an interpreter.

Kelley said he wasn’t surprised by the verdict. “It was difficult because Veronica had made a few statements to the police that weren’t terribly helpful to her case,” he said.

Juror Rich Adler, 59, said it took the panel only one day to conclude that Paz was guilty of first-degree murder. But deciding whether she was guilty of lying in wait and had a murderous intent was more difficult.

To try to show that, the prosecution relied on Perry’s testimony. But Perry admitted under cross-examination to lying on the stand several times.

Perry’s lack of credibility “kind of undermined the case that she expressly had the intent to murder,” Adler said.

Jeremy Gorr, 34, said fellow jurors were frustrated that they could not convict her of lying in wait. “Most people thought she was probably guilty of it. But we didn’t have the evidence,” he said.