Mendota, CA: Mendota husband's murder trial opens

Posted at 12:17 PM on Thursday, Apr. 08, 2010
By Pablo Lopez / The Fresno Bee


An unemployed Mendota man abused his wife frequently and then killed her because she was going to leave him, a prosecutor said this morning in opening statements for the man’s murder trial.
Rafael Rivera, 42, has told sheriff’s investigators he killed his wife, Ana Maria Nolosco Rivera, in self-defense because she struck his sore foot with a vacuum cleaner and then attacked him with a knife in February 2008.
But prosecutor Michael Frye told a Fresno County Superior Court jury that Rafael Rivera was a domineering man who frequently yelled at his wife and beat her.
On the night before Ana Maria Rivera was killed, she told her husband she was going to leave him, Frye said. Rafael Rivera laughed it off, saying “the only way she could leave him is if she was dead,” Frye said.
Frye, who is seeking a conviction of murder, said autopsy photographs will show the wife's death was deliberate. She suffered bruises to her face, a cracked skull and a deeply slit throat, he said.

Sheriff's investigators found the wife, 34, fatally stabbed in the living room of the couple's Mendota apartment in the 200 block of Arnaudon Avenue on Feb. 26, 2008.
With the aid of a sheriff's helicopter, Rafael River was captured later that night, hiding in an almond orchard about 20 miles west of Mendota, Frye said.
In opening statements this morning, attorney Scott Baly, who represents Rivera, agreed the Riveras had a rocky marriage.
The couple’s dislike for each other intensified when Rafael Rivera, a mechanic, was injured in 2004 and could no longer work. A piston fell on his foot, causing him to undergo surgeries and take medication for severe pain, Baly said.
That same year, Rafael Rivera was accused of domestic violence. Frye said he pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife in 2004, but Baly said his client successfully completed a year-long, court-ordered domestic violence program.
Frye told jurors Ana Maria Rivera felt helpless against her husband because she didn’t have a paying job or know how to drive. He said the defendant would often badger his wife and beat her with no one was around.
The couple’s two teen-aged daughters plan to testify about the abuse, Frye said. Baly said Rivera will testify.
He was on pain medication and drinking coffee in the kitchen when his wife purposefully hit his sore foot with the vacuum cleaner, Baly said. She then got a kitchen knife and attacked her husband, he said.
After he killed his wife, Rivera “didn’t know what to do,” Baly said, but after Rivera was arrested he cooperated with sheriff’s investigators.
Prior to the trial, Rivera rejected an opportunity to plead guilty to second-degree murder and receive a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Frye is seeking a conviction of first-degree murder, which carries a penalty of 26 years to life in prison.