Charges expected in slayings of mother with child
Burglar, Rapest Charged with Murdering Mother and 5-Month-Old Preborn Child
RIVERSIDE, California -- The district attorney's office plans to charge a parolee with murdering a mother of two and the 5-month-old fetus she was carrying, a defense attorney said.
Deputy Public Defender Mark Johnson said the district attorney's office notified him that Tony Lee Reynolds, 23, would be arraigned Thursday on murder charges.
Reynolds was released from prison March 12, less than three weeks before Estela Perez, 29, was stabbed to death March 31 in her Fairmount Boulevard home. He had just completed his sentence for a 2003 burglary and was living in an Antioch Avenue group home.
Riverside police and prosecutors scheduled a press conference today to announce charges in the Perez murder but did not identify the suspect.
Police said Reynolds had been in custody since his arrest May 12 on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman at knifepoint in her Bandini Avenue house earlier that day.
Perez's sister, Ana Chapple, said Thursday that news of the impending charges was of little comfort.
"Obviously, nothing is going to bring my sister back," Chapple said.
Perez, 29, came to the United States from El Salvador in March 1990, her sister said. She lived with her husband and their two grade-school-age children in a small house near Fairmount Park. Perez had just returned home from dropping her children off at school when she was attacked.
Perez's sister, Antonia Galindo, discovered her body. Her throat had been cut and she had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest, stomach and legs, according to an affidavit in support of a search warrant.
Neighbors Pleased
Perez's neighbors on Fairmount Boulevard, a busy street that leads directly into the park, said they are pleased charges likely will be filed today.
"It's a big relief, absolutely," said Eric Burton, 37.
"Oh my God. Oh, thank God," said Burton's 34-year-old wife, Kryn, when told the news. "It's just horrific."
According to court records, Reynolds also is suspected of committing two other burglaries near where the sexual assault occurred. Police said they found property belonging to the burglary victims in Reynolds' room at the group home.
Police also found an 8-inch kitchen knife in a top dresser drawer, according to a search warrant. The knife was among items stolen from a home on Rosewood Place on May 3, the records state.
The Reynolds case places renewed scrutiny on transitional-housing facilities for parolees, which have come under the spotlight since two-time rapist David Dokich was paroled into a Mead Valley group home early last month.
Reynolds had been staying at a bright blue house for parolees on Antioch Avenue in Riverside. The home is one of three parolee homes on the street and neighbors voiced concerns that the parolees are not adequately watched.
"I want those people out of here. They're dumping people here and there's no supervision," said Phillip Laney, 43, who lives two doors away from where Reynolds lived.
Rayma Northcutt, 49, said she wants the people who run the homes to give neighbors a list of the occupants. "It gives me the cold chills," she said.
Kern County court records show that while he was in prison in February 2004, Reynolds pleaded no contest to indecent exposure and battery on a peace officer.
Reynolds was considered a registered sex offender when he was released from prison because of the indecent-exposure charge. But the charge was not serious enough to land him on a public sex-offender list such as the California Megan's Law Web site.
Reynolds described himself as mentally ill in a rambling January letter he sent to Illinois authorities about a previous conviction. And he listed prescription medications he had taken for a variety of mental conditions.
Reynolds wrote that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1995, when he was living at a child-welfare home in Decatur, Ill. In 2000, he wrote, he was diagnosed with "impulse control disorder" at a Joliet, Ill., juvenile hall.
Reynolds half sister, Teresa Etcheson, said he was living with his mother in Vandalia, Ill., until 2003.
Reynolds pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery in December 2002 after hitting Etcheson in the face. Etcheson said his hot temper had been scaring their mother. When she told him to leave their mother's house, he hit Etcheson in a rage, she said.
"His words to me--'I'll kill you,' " Etcheson said.
Etcheson said Reynolds and his younger brother, Sonny, were put in an institution when Reynolds was about 9 years old because of a conflict over custody between his parents, who were separated.
"He was in trouble from then on," Etcheson said.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/riverside/stori
es/PE_News_Local_D_reynolds24.1.24a518.html
Posted by Editor at June 24, 2005 08:20 AM
