San Diego couple plead not guilty in slaying of wealthy Texan in Mexico

Last April, a wealthy Texan made several trips between San Diego County and Mexico to finalize the purchase of a luxury oceanfront condo in Baja California.

Jake Clyde Merendino, 51, was joined on his drives to and from the upscale Palacio del Mar development by a younger man he’d met online two years earlier.

On May 2, Merendino’s body was found in a ravine off the highway between the Mexican cities of Rosarito and Ensenada. He had been stabbed multiple times and his throat had been slashed.

Now his former lover, who has since claimed to be his sole heir, is facing federal charges stemming from Merendino’s death.

David Enrique Meza, 25, and his girlfriend, Taylor Marie Langston, 20, pleaded not guilty to those charges Thursday at their first appearance in San Diego federal court. They had been arrested the day before in Imperial Beach.

Meza is charged with foreign domestic violence resulting in murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He and Merendino had been in a romantic relationship since 2013, according to the federal indictment unsealed Wednesday.

At the same time, Meza also was in a long-term relationship with Langston, who faces charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making a false statement to a federal officer. She and Meza have a 6-month-old child.

Merendino was killed a day after he closed escrow on the $300,000 condo, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Shortly after his death, Meza produced a handwritten will on hotel letterhead that appeared to name him as the sole heir to Merendino’s fortune.

The will is being contested in a Texas court.

After accepting the defendants’ pleas, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Gallo scheduled a detention hearing for Meza on Monday. Prosecutors contend that Meza is a flight risk.

The judge set a $50,000 bond for Langston, and ordered her to be placed on GPS monitoring if she is released from custody. She also would also be subject to a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and restricted from traveling outside San Diego County, Gallo said.

According to court documents, Merendino and Meza traveled back and forth to Mexico several times beginning on April 29. On the night Merendino disappeared, they were seen going to Merendino’s Baja California hotel room.

In the courtroom Thursday, Asst. U.S. Atty. Alexandra Foster said Langston told the FBI that on the night of the killing, she and Meza visited a friend in Tijuana. She said they sat at the friend’s dinner table for four hours without eating, drinking or watching TV, and then returned home.

The friend told investigators he hadn’t seen Meza or Langston in more than a year, but that he received a call from Meza after Merendino’s slaying asking him to provide an alibi.

Mexican officials told the FBI that Merendino’s cellphone, iPad, laptop computer and $15,000 diamond-studded Rolex watch were missing.

The iPad was found later in the apartment Meza and Langston shared in San Diego’s Grant Hill neighborhood.

If convicted, Meza faces life in prison, the prosecutor said. He already has a restraining order against him stemming from a 2014 domestic violence case.

Langston faces up to 20 years in custody if convicted in the federal case.

dana.littlefield@latimes.com

Littlefield writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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