Trista Ann Spicer and Eric Israel Mercado (San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office) and the home where she allegedly killed and buried him (KNBC screenshot)
A 44-year-old woman in California will be going to trial for allegedly killing her ex-boyfriend, smashing him in the head with a frying pan and slitting his throat with a box cutter before burying his remains in a “makeshift tomb” on her property.
San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge William Jefferson Powell on Friday ordered Trista Ann Spicer to be tried on one count of murder with an enhancement for use of a deadly weapon in the slaying of 42-year-old Eric Israel Mercado, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Spicer has pleaded not guilty to killing Mercado, who had been missing since 2014 until his body was discovered on Spicer’s property in 2022.
According to a previous news release from the San Bernardino Police Department, detectives with the Homicide Unit at about 3 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2022 conducted a “follow-up interview” after receiving a tip about possible human remains being hidden on a local property. After corroborating the information provided by the tipster, investigators were able to obtain a search warrant for a property in the 1400 block of E. Davidson Street.
“During the service of the search warrant, investigators observed what appeared to be a makeshift tomb on the property. Investigators entered the makeshift tomb and located human remains inside,” the release stated. “Homicide investigators identified pertinent information and learned that Trista Spicer and the decedent, Eric Mercado, lived at the residence together. Investigators learned that Mercado had been reported missing by his family in 2014 and had not been seen since.”
Investigators said they determined Spicer was responsible for Mercado’s death based on the evidence collected in the investigation. She was taken into custody on Sept. 2, 2022, in Yucaipa, California, which is about 70 miles east of Los Angeles.
New details about Mercado’s death were revealed during a preliminary hearing in the case on Friday.
According to a report from the San Bernardino Sun, the hearing centered on the testimony of Waylan Gentry, Spicer’s most recent boyfriend, who confirmed that he was the one who went to police with the information about Spicer killing Mercado.
Gentry, a convicted felon, reportedly told the court that he began living with Spicer in 2019 and the two regularly used drugs and alcohol. In 2022, Gentry said that Spicer was talking about moving from California to Illinois, where she had family, but that she had one important thing to take care of before she could leave, and asked Gentry to help.
The task, according to Gentry, was to help Spicer “get rid of” her boyfriend, the Sun reported.
“I didn’t know what she meant,” Gentry said. “She said he was buried under the stairs. I did not believe her.”
Gentry reportedly said he decided to go to the police after speaking with his mother, who told him to “do the right thing.” When police searched the home, they found a hidden storage compartment that was about 8 feet wide, 6 feet high, and 3 feet deep.
Mercado’s body was reportedly found in the compartment wrapped inside of a sliced air mattress.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Mercado told police that his nose and eye socket appeared to have been “obliterated” and would have left him dead “within seconds,” per the Sun.
Records show that Spicer is currently scheduled to appear in court again on July 12.
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