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.
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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.
