FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Four years ago, Beatriz Perez received probation when she admitted to trying to kill her husband with a poisoned sandwich after accusing him of having an affair.
On Wednesday, the 49-year-old woman sat in a Bexar County
courtroom again - this time accused of bludgeoning to death a new husband.
Police found Army veteran Juan Abitu, 73, soaked in blood in
his small garage apartment in San Antonio's historic Monticello Park
neighborhood Aug. 23, 2007.
Perez, who had been served with divorce papers two days
earlier, left town later that afternoon, witnesses said. She wasn't seen again
until four weeks later, when she was arrested crossing the border into Eagle
Pass, prosecutor Michael De Leon told jurors during opening statements in her
murder trial.
"Instead of going to her husband's funeral, Beatriz
Perez packed up everything and moved to Mexico on the day of the murder,"
De Leon said, pointing out that a strand of her hair was found on Abitu's body.
The murder weapon was never found, but a deputy medical
examiner said Wednesday that Abitu suffered multiple head fractures.
Also on Wednesday, prosecutors displayed on the courtroom
wall a large photo of Abitu's blood-smeared left hand, where investigators said
they found a long, wavy hair traced to Perez.
Lawyers for Perez countered that the hair was
inconsequential. Although the couple had been separated since February 2007,
two months after they were married, they still had feelings for each other and
often visited, defense attorney Jay Norton said.
"Reason and common sense will show you a lot of the
state's case is built upon assumption - a house of cards," Norton said.
"This really quite honestly is a sloppy investigation."
Attorneys didn't mention Perez's previous conviction to the
jury of eight women and four men. Perez told police in 2003 that she put eight
pills of Ativan, a sedative, in a tuna sandwich she made for Jose Perez. They
had been married for 22 years and had three children.
Two years before that incident, she had tried the same
scheme using fewer pills, but all it did was make her husband sleepy, she told
police.
Outside the courtroom Wednesday, defense attorney Alan Brown
said the old case and the current one are completely different.
"This is head trauma, a violent act," he said.
"Our thinking is that it's so much different from (the 2003 case) that it
shows she's innocent of this."
[Craig Kapitan, “Woman on trial
in black widow murder plot,” MySA (San Antonio, Tx.), Nov.
4, 2009]
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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Jurors returned a guilty verdict
Monday in the trial of a San Antonio woman whose 73-year-old husband was found
beaten to death two days after she was served with divorce papers.
It wasn't until after the punishment phase of Beatriz
Perez's murder trial began that the panel learned that the 49-year-old
defendant was already on probation for aggravated assault - having admitted to
police in 2005 that she twice tried to poison a previous husband.
Perez could face up to life in prison for the death of Juan
Abitu, a Green Beret and Vietnam veteran described by relatives as the rock
that held their family together.
Closing arguments for the punishment hearing are expected
this morning in the 226th District Court.
Defense attorneys described Perez during the weeklong trial
as someone who was prone to anxiety - so much so that it wasn't surprising she
fled to a family home in Piedras Negras, Mexico, immediately after discovering
her husband's body while peering through the locked screen door of his
Monticello Park apartment on the morning of Aug. 23, 2007.
Perez was apprehended a month later as she crossed the
border into Eagle Pass.
"I looked up and I saw a lot of blood - too much
blood," Perez told jurors through an interpreter while on the witness
stand Friday. "I was very, very scared. I just hadn't seen something like
that ever."
She said she didn't know who killed her husband but feared
the assailant might be after her, too. The two were still in love, Perez said,
adding that the divorce had been planned as a way to appease her children, who
didn't get along with Abitu.
Abitu's murder was more likely a random occurrence, her
attorney, Alan Brown, added during closing arguments.
"Burglaries are rampant throughout this city,"
Brown said. "I don't know what happened here. But I really don't believe
this woman - 4 foot 11 - did that to this Green Beret."
But Perez worked construction, prosecutor Michael De Leon
later countered. He pointed to testimony from a deputy medical examiner that
anybody could have inflicted such wounds, given the right instrument. A murder
weapon was never recovered.
If it was a burglary, he said, it seems odd that Abitu's
gold watch, ring, car keys and a couple hundred dollars in cash were left on
his body. Perez was the only person with a motive, and her actions spoke louder
than words that day, De Leon told jurors.
"If your husband, or your wife, is lying on the floor
in a pool of blood ... any decent human being is going to call for help,"
he said. "You don't bolt for the border."
[Craig Kapitan, “Woman found
guilty of murdering husband,” MySA (San Antonio,
Tx Nov. 9, 2009]
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For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.
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