Rosa Baca (Tulare County District Attorney’s Office)
A 55-year-old woman in California will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars after being convicted of beating her 38-year-old boyfriend to death with a hammer back in 2018.
A Tulare County jury on Wednesday found Rosa Baca guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal 2018 slaying of Jose Magana, prosecutors announced. The jury also found that Baca committed the murder with the special circumstances that she tortured Magana and with the special allegation that she did so with the use of a deadly weapon.
According to a press release from the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office, officers with the Porterville Police Department at around 8:15 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2018 responded to a trailer located in the 200 block of South Indiana Street regarding a report about an unresponsive adult male victim who appeared to have been assaulted.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located Baca, who told them that she and Magana, her boyfriend of 16 months, had gotten into an argument the night before that ended with him leaving the home. She claimed that she did not see him again until the early morning, when he returned to the trailer with severe injuries, no shirt, and no shoes. She claimed he had been “assaulted at an unknown location,” police wrote in a press release.
However, police at the scene noted that despite having lost his shoes, the victim’s feet were clean. There was also no evidence of blood or a struggle, prosecutors said.
Emergency Medical Services personnel transported Magana via ambulance to a local trauma center, saying he was suffering from “major injuries to his entire body.” He was admitted into the facility and immediately placed on life support. He ultimately succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead the following day.
Read Related Also: Adoptive Mom Creates GoFundMe for 5-Year-Old Son, She’s Now Accused of Killing Him
Investigators said that the victim’s injuries supported the theory that he had been assaulted with a blunt weapon, and detectives were dispatched to the trailer.
A search warrant was obtained and executed on the trailer that Baca and Magna shared. Investigators said they obtained evidence that appeared to undercut Baca’s recitation of what took place, exposing several inconsistencies in her story.
“Baca told police she had not driven anywhere during the rainy night and morning. However, Officers noticed that Baca’s car was warm to the touch indicating that it had been recently driven, and mud tracks from the vehicle were evident,” prosecutors wrote in the release. “Under questioning, Baca eventually admitted that she had kicked the victim, beat him with a hammer, and driven his and her clothes to a dumpster. Nearby video surveillance confirmed her car making multiple trips away from the residence during the call for help.”
Police said that Magna was “defenseless” and likely sleeping at the time of the attack and that Baca likely waited “several hours” after the assault before contacting authorities for medical assistance.
Baca is currently scheduled to appear in court again on July 31 for her sentencing hearing where she will face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
