Woman ‘obliterated’ boyfriend’s face with frying pan, buried body in ‘makeshift tomb’ under her stairs for years: Police

Trista Ann Spicer and Eric Israel Mercado (SBCSO) and the home where she allegedly killed and buried him (KNBC screenshot)

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.”

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