An Orange County jury decided today that Steve Carl Evans is guilty of killing a 24-year-old woman who is alleged to have dabbled in Satanism. Read the Crime Scene’s prior post about the crime here.

Evans, a 61-year-old ex-convict, said he killed Jeannette Elias in self-defense on April 16, 2003, when she was stabbed in his trailer in Fullerton. Elias allegedly was “immersed in the Satanic lifestyle,” one defense expert testified during the trial. She had Satanic tattoos including “666″ and the names “Satan” and “Lucifier.”

The same jury that convicted him today will come back to court Thursday to start the penalty phase of the trial — which could lead to the death sentence.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of JAG officer Nicholas S. Thompson to an interim judgeship that allows him to assume a post he was elected to begin in December. 
 
Here’s what the release says:

Thompson, 51, of Orange County, has served as a deputy district attorney for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office since 1999. He has served as a judge advocate general officer with the U.S. Army Reserve since 2003. 

He previously served as a deputy public defender in the Orange County Public Defender’s Office from 1986 to 1999 and, from 1982 to 1986, was a sole practitioner. He earned a juris doctorate from Western State University College of Law and a bachelor of science degree from Western State University.

He was elected in June 2008 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Richard E. Behn. The governor’s appointment allows Thompson to immediately assume the position he was otherwise elected to begin in January 2009. Thompson is a Republican.
 
The compensation for this position is $178,789.

Frank Martin Bojorquez Jr., 55, of Orange was sentenced today to five years in prison for sexually assaulting six female inmates who were assigned to work at the county animal shelter, prosecutors say.

He was convicted in April of the assaults.  Bojorquez used his position supervising inmates at the shelter to coerce the women into having sex with him sometime between Oct. 1 2004 and Dec. 10, 2005.

Besides prison, he also will have to register as a sex offender.

I talked this morning to one of the jurors in the case of Rachael Mullenix – the Huntington Beach teen just convicted of killing her mom. Don Apodaca, 52, of Westminster shed his thoughts on the case.

He said a text message sent from Mullenix to her beau a few days before the murder helped convince him that she planned the slaying. The message lays out two options — ”run or Tuesday.”

Apodaca took “Tuesday” to mean the plan to slay Barbara Mullenix.

“That was the code for the plan to murder,” he said.

The juror also said Mullenix — who testified that she never killed her mom, but only helped clean up the crime scene — was not believable at all.

“As far as credibility, Rachael had none,” he said. “She was one cool cookie … she was glib, but it was just too calculated. … We all thought she was lying.”

He also thought she planned the murder because of one of her replies during cross-examination.

Prosecutor Sonia Balleste asked Mullenix what she thought about cleaning up the crime scene.

“She didn’t answer the question,” he said. “She said, ‘I did not know how I was going to react’ … which made me think at some point in the past, she had thought about (her mother’s murder) .”

Apodaca, who is married without children, added he did not think of the teen as a “cold-blooded, manipulated killer,” as described by Balleste.

“I don’t think it’s fair to demonize Rachael. She was damaged goods,” he said. “She made terrible choices, but she’s not the seed of Satan.”

Newsflash: A jury convicted Rachael Mullenix, 19, of first-degree murder for the death of her mom.

Read my web story on the verdict here.

Afterward at the press conference, Deputy District Sonia Balleste said Mullenix wanted her mom, Barbara Mullenix, dead because she didn’t want to be kept from her boyfriend.

“Nobody was saying no to this girl. Whatever she wanted, she did. This was the first time there was an obstacle. Mother was in the way.”

Huntington Beach Police Detective Steven Mack, the lead investigator in the case, agreed. Talking to me after the verdict, he said the motive was “young love.”

“Mom was trying to split them up, and she didn’t want any part of it,” he added.

The jury in the murder trial of Rachael Mullenix — the Huntington Beach teen accused of stabbing her mother dead — has reached a verdict today. Their decision will be announced at 1:30 p.m.

Stay tuned. I’ll post an update as soon as I know.

Jurors in the murder trial of Rachael Mullenix — the Huntington Beach teenager charged with killing her mom — went home again this afternoon. They come back at 9 a.m. Thursday to begin their third full day of deliberations.

What are they mulling over? Whether to find the young woman guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter. Or … they could acquit her.

I’ll update you with a verdict when it comes in.

Is 19-year-old Rachael Mullenix guilty of murdering her mother and dumping her corpse in the cold waters of Newport Bay?

Well, after their first full day of deliberations, jurors haven’t made up their minds.

The panel of seven men and five women left the Santa Ana courthouse around 4:30 p.m. They spend part of the afternoon listening to a police recording of Mullenix’s conversation with her ex-boyfriend Ian Allen – who is also charged with killing Barbara Mullenix on Sept. 13, 2006.

The pair were sitting in a patrol car in Louisana after their arrest. They didn’t know their conversation was being recorded. During the exchange, Mullenix urged Allen to plead insanity. She also said she would wait for him until after he got out of prison.

“When you get out, I’ll be there,” Mullenix said. “I love you.”

Allen responds “I love you” back.

The former lovebirds, though, no longer talk. In fact, Mullenix testified that she only told Allen she loved him because she wanted to appease him — and that she only ”thought” she loved him at the time. She blames Allen for killing her mom, who she has repeatedly called her “best friend.”

The jury, which began deliberating late Monday, comes back at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Folks, I’ll be off for a couple of weeks teaching at a journalism workshop for high school students at Cal Poly in San Luis Obsipo. While I’m gone, continue checking “The Crime Scene” for courtroom blogs from Rachanee Srisavasdi.

But before I  go, I wanted to alert regular readers  about “The Morning Read” in The Orange County Register next Thursday and Friday — July 17 and 18. I will take a look at perhaps the most riveting courtroom testimony in an Orange County courtroom in the last 50 years.

A yellowing transcript reveals how a retiree  survived a bullet wound to the temple, how he disarmed a much younger and much stronger assailant, and how he perhaps nipped a potential serial killer in the bud.

Just when I didn’t think a weird guy could get any weirder …

Remember Skylar Deleon, the former bit child actor awaiting a death penalty trial in Orange County in the murders of a Newport Beach couple in a bizarre 2004 plot to steal their yacht, the “Well Deserved”?

Rumor had it that he was part way through a sex change before his arrest in 2005.  He was – according to courtroom scuttlebutt during the 2006 headline-making trial of his wife, Jennifer Deleon– part man and part woman.

Apparently, he was too much part man for his own liking.

Deleon, who will soon be 29, somehow got a hold of a razor blade in his cell in the Orange County Jail about six months ago.

And he tried to hack off his penis.

“There was a lot of  blood … but from what I understand, he was not able to complete the job,” said Damon Micalizzi, a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “He was taken to the hospital and had it sewn back on.”

The emergency surgery apparently was successful.

“He’s fine, I guess, as fine as can be expected for someone who tries to do something like this to himself,” Micalizzi added.

Deleon is back in his jail cell in the Orange County jail awaiting an Aug. 26 trial date for allegedly masterminding the murders of Thomas and Jackie Hawks in a November 2004 plot to steal their 55-foot  yacht.

The Hawks were forced to sign over the “Well Deserved,” and then they were tied to an anchor and thrown overboard somewhere near Catalina, according to testimony at Jennifer Deleon’s trial. Their bodies were never recovered.

Jennifer Deleon, 26, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for her role in luring the couple to their yacht, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Skylar Deleon and alleged accomplice John F. Kennedy, 42, are scheduled for trial in August. Both could get the death penalty if convicted.