Sanchez Grew More Violent, Court Told

Hoping to show a pattern of escalating violence, Ventura County prosecutors Monday launched their case against murder suspect Vincent Sanchez by presenting evidence of numerous sexual assaults the unemployed handyman committed over five years.

Sanchez, 31, has pleaded guilty to more than 50 felony counts involving the sexual assaults of seven women. But he is also accused of killing Moorpark College student Megan Barroso, 20, during an alleged kidnapping and rape attempt in July.

Defense lawyers concede that Sanchez fatally shot Barroso with an assault rifle. But they argue that there was no attempt to rape her--a significant distinction, because the allegation makes Sanchez eligible for the death penalty.

During the first day of what is expected to be a lengthy preliminary hearing, prosecutors sought to establish a pattern of increasingly violent sexual assaults that they contend led to Barroso’s slaying.

Simi Valley Police Det. Kathleen Shatz testified about six sexual assaults, including four rapes, she investigated between 1996 and 2000.

In those cases, the assailant broke into the victims’ homes late at night by prying off window screens or slipping through sliding glass doors, Shatz testified.

The attacker raped some women at knifepoint, others at gunpoint, and was obsessed with concealing his identity. One victim was blindfolded. Others were ordered to cover their heads with pillows.

Sanchez has admitted to four of the assaults that Shatz testified about Monday.

One of those victims was a 19-year-old Moorpark College student who in September 1996 awoke to find an assailant in her bedroom.

“She felt a hand over her mouth and a knife to her throat,” Shatz testified. “He said, ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t cooperate.’”

After he raped her, the attacker said he knew where she went to school and where she worked. The detective testified that when police searched Sanchez’s Simi Valley house five years later they found a payroll stub belonging to the victim.

Shatz testified that police also recovered underwear and jewelry belonging to other victims.

During cross-examination of Shatz, defense lawyers tried to show that Sanchez was gentle and polite to the victims.

Shatz acknowledged that, based on her interviews, none of the women recalled her attacker using profanities. Most told police he didn’t hit them. One recalled how he tucked her back into bed after the rape.

But prosecutors tried to show Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken Riley that there was nothing gentle about the attacks.

Instead, they argued, the level of violence and reckless behavior escalated.

A 25-year-old Simi Valley woman told Shatz she was kidnapped from her home at gunpoint about 4 a.m. and taken to a field, where the assailant made her pose for pictures before sexually assaulting her.

Five months later, a 20-year-old Simi Valley woman was attacked at gunpoint in the driveway of her home.

“She felt the barrel of a handgun over her left temple,” Shatz said. The assailant threw a jacket over her head and drove away.

She begged him not to rape her. But he took her to his house, blindfolded her and raped her repeatedly on a sofa bed, Shatz testified. He later told her “he better not see police at her house or he would come back and hurt her,” the detective said.

Four months after that assault, in February 2000, a 34-year-old Simi Valley women was stabbed in the leg by her attacker and then dragged upstairs in her home and raped several times, Shatz testified.

The attacker, who videotaped the assault, threatened to slit the throat of the woman’s dog if she resisted. The woman was so frightened she didn’t report the assault. Shatz said it was uncovered when police found the videotape in Sanchez’s home.

A grand jury indicted Sanchez on murder and rape charges in September, but the indictment was set aside last month by a Santa Barbara County judge. Judge Frank Ochoa found there were not enough women on the Ventura County Grand Jury and that the panel did not represent a fair cross-section of the community as required by law.

Ventura County prosecutors decided not to appeal that ruling and refiled murder charges.

Testimony in the preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday.