Cori Desmond Valentine’s Day murder trial begins
Robert O’Malley, a former manager at Beaches restaurant in Manhattan, testifies Monday in the murder trial of Cori Desmond, pictured on screen, before Judge David Mazurek in a San Bernardino courtroom Monday. Photo by David Rosenfeld
Friends and family of Cori Desmond filled a San Bernardino County courthouse this week to learn the details of how this beloved young woman with a promising future as a teacher was murdered on Valentine’s Day 2009.
They were the kind of details the family did not want to hear, but had to know.
The group sat silently as the defense attorney for accused killer, 36-year-old Tony Lopez Perez, told a jury of six men and six women that his client found Desmond, 28, passed out on a North Redondo sidewalk in the early morning hours of February 15.
Attorney Andrew Haynal said Perez woke Desmond up and she started screaming. To calm her down he pressed his left hand over her mouth and his right hand over her throat. “Then he pressed too hard,” Haynal said in his opening statement.
The cause of death, according to prosecutors, was “homicidal asphyxiation.”
Tony Lopez Perez, accused killer of Cori Desmond, is shackled outside the presence of the jury. Photo by David Rosenfeld
“Tony’s freaking out,” Haynal said. “He doesn’t know what to do. He does the totally wrong thing. He drives around with her for about a day.”
Perez, a father of two, told detectives he put Desmond’s lifeless body in the backseat of his Dodge Durango and went to bed. He then drove to work the next morning at the Spitfire Grill in Santa Monica, where Perez worked as a manager and cook. All the while Desmond remained in the backseat covered by a blanket and Perez’s chef coat. He stopped to buy trash bags along the way.
After work, he dropped by his mother’s house, then drove to Palos Verdes intending to dump her body over a cliff. But there were too many people around so he made the two-hour road trip toward Big Bear where he eventually tossed Desmond’s remains over the mountainside off Highway 330 near Running Springs.
“It will be fairly obvious, this case won’t be a whodunit,” said Haynal, who will attempt to convince the jury that Perez committed voluntary manslaughter, rather than murder, which carries a possible life sentence. “It was a chance encounter,” he said.
If he’s successful, Perez could face a maximum of 11 years in prison as opposed to 25 years to life for murder. Haynal said the case hinges on the defendant’s mental state, which he described as intoxicated, scared and panicked.
“Even though his conduct was wrong, the evidence will not show premeditation,” Haynal said.
Friends recalled Cori Desmond as energetic and full of affection.
Day in court finally arrives
Perez entered the courtroom in ankle and wrist shackles, which were removed outside the presence of the jury. Throughout the opening statements, Perez sat motionless with his head tilted downward. He wore a blue dress shirt, tie and black slacks, his hair neatly cropped with a trim goatee.
It wasn’t until after the first day of testimony concluded Monday that Desmond’s family and friends, who made the hour and a half drive from the beach cities toSan Bernardino, let their emotions come flooding back. Her father Mark Desmond was overcome with tears in the hallway.
“I’m just glad it’s on the way to being over,” he said.
Day 2 coverage of the Cori Desmond trial
It’s been more than two years since Cori Desmond, a popular Manhattan Beach bartender, was murdered. She was a beautiful young woman killed on Valentine’s Day after leaving the BAC Street Lounge, a neighborhood bar in the 2400 block of Artesia Boulevard in North Redondo Beach.
Perez lived nearby, off Carnegie Lane, near one of more than 50 billboards, some paid for by the family and others donated, which blanketed the Los Angeles area in the months after Desmond’s murder advertising a $10,000 reward for any tips.
The case sent shock waves across the South Bay and triggered an eight-month manhunt that eventually led to the suspect’s arrest and subsequent confession in October. In the time it took to obtain an arrest, Mark Desmond said he slept maybe one hour a night.
“I was doing my own investigation of course, me being dad,” he said. “I spent a lot of hours just driving around aimlessly like I was lost.”
A friend of Desmond’s, Duke Tosado, said the case has had a profound effect in the community. “I’m so much more conscious going out,” Tosado said outside the courthouse on Monday in the sweltering heat. “You’re so much more aware. It was a wake-up call to everybody.”
Tosado, who frequently hung out with Desmond drinking and talking for hours, said it was unlikely she passed out on the sidewalk. “She held her own,” Tosado said. “It’s not believable she would black out like that.”
The prosecution in the case will attempt to prove that Perez acted with “malice and foresight.” Deputy District Attorney Karen Khim told the jury that Desmond’s injuries were consistent with a struggle. She had blood on her face, nose and mouth. And there were multiple bruises to her face, a contusion to her skull and the hyoid bone in her neck was broken.
“This was not an accident,” Khim said.
Tim Baker testified that he found Desmond’s body the following Monday down a steep embankment where cars stopped to remove snow chains. He said he saw a plastic bag with a foot and a shin hanging out.
“It was pretty obvious what it was,” Baker said.
Her body was found with her pants around her ankles. Sheriff’s Lt. Rick Els testified Tuesday that the motive was a sex assault.
Desmond’s brother Blake testified to finding his sister’s blue Jeep Wrangler the following day on McKay Street. Desmond’s boss at Beaches restaurant in Manhattan Beach Robert O’Malley, along with friend and owner of the BAC Street Lounge Ashley Richmond, testified to seeing Desmond that night. She left the bar around 2:30 in the morning, Richmond said. A surveillance camera at a local ATM captured the last images of her alive.
Girlfriend tipped police
Police detectives had few clues to work with in the months following her death. The case was in jeopardy of going cold. Despite the distance, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detectives stuck with it.
It was Perez’s girlfriend, Tiffany Ware, who eventually notified detectives about her boyfriend’s suspicious behavior in the days following the murder. She said Perez treated her and his mother that Valentine’s Day at the restaurant where he worked. After dinner, she took his mother home. Perez finished his shift, but didn’t come home until 4:30 the next morning, she said.
Ware told detectives that Perez returned home the following day, a Monday, around 2 o’clock in the morning, presumably after dumping Desmond’s body on a snowy pass. Later that morning, he cleaned his Dodge Durango, which his girlfriend thought was odd because Perez usually kept his car rather messy. He soon had it detailed and shortly after sold it to a Los Angeles dealership. He was just two payments shy of owning it outright.
Then his behavior got really weird. Ware told detectives Perez volunteered to take a trip to Big Bear that same week, telling his girlfriend at one point during the drive up the mountain that he thought Cori Desmond, the murdered girl featured in recent news reports, might be located somewhere nearby. Later he allegedly told Ware he hoped police didn’t think he killed Desmond even though no one had accused him of the crime.
When police first questioned Perez in August of 2009 he denied everything, including having his car detailed. Detectives tracked down the automobile and positively identified Desmond’s DNA in a spot on the carpet almost three months later. Crime scene investigators used a special chemical and a black light to identify an area that looked like it contained blood. Further testing of particulate matter confirmed it was Desmond’s. Detectives also found some of Perez’s semen along with a toe ring belonging to Desmond in the Durango.
In October 2009, faced with the evidence against him, Perez changed his story. He told detectives he discovered Desmond’s dead body, but instead of calling police, he put her in the backseat of his car and dumped her in the mountains the next day. He said he masturbated the night before and may have gotten semen on his hand, presumably to explain why his DNA might be found on her body.
He then showed police where he allegedly found her on the sidewalk and led them to where he dumped her remains. It was then that Perez finally admitted to killing her.
Attorney Andrew Haynal, left, prepares to defend Tony Lopez Perez, accused of killing Cori Desmond and dumping her body in the mountains near San Bernardino. Photo by David Rosenfeld
“It was absolutely the wrong conduct,” said Haynal, Perez’s attorney. “He knows that, but it’s too late. What’s done is done. It does take quite a while, but in the end he did come clean.”
A miracle baby brought joy and love
Cori Desmond spent the first four years of her young life in and out of hospitals. She was born with a diaphragmatic hernia, an abnormal opening in the diaphragm that hinders breathing. Her father Mark Desmond said her first hospital bill totaled $1.4 million. Thankfully for them the family had health insurance and ended up paying just $1,000 out-of-pocket.
“All her intestines and all her organs were underdeveloped, and her breathing wasn’t quite right,” Mark Desmond said.
Desmond’s stepmother, Monica Desmond, called her a “miracle baby.”
Her condition prevented Cori from eating big meals so she ate small amounts more often. This led her to a love of food and cooking. “Cooking and eating was one of her passions, so she would eat constantly all the time,” Monica Desmond said.
As Cori blossomed into adulthood, family and friends came to know a smart, self-confident young woman, unafraid to express her opinion, who was energetic and full of affection for those she cared most about, who were many. At her memorial service, more than 900 people filled the church. At least three people have tattoos dedicated to Cori.
“Everyone loved Cori,” said Victoria Mallard, a friend who worked at a bar Desmond frequented. She said Desmond had a temper at times, but the kind of temper she absolutely adored. She had an infectious laughter, could sing and played guitar. “She had a voice like an angel,” Mallard said.
Desmond graduated from North Torrance High School and earned a Masters degree in criminal justice from Long Beach State. Unsure of her calling in life, she changed her mind and decided to become a teacher. Her goal was to teach autistic children. A week after her death a notice came in the mail that she had earned her teaching credential.
“She was very smart and very strong,” Mark Desmond said of his daughter. “People gravitated to her. She had a lifting spirit. She would tell you in a second just how she felt.”
"She had voice like an angel," said friend Victoria Mallard
Absent from the first day of the trial was Cori’s mother Debbie, because of health problems. Debbie had a double brain aneurysm about a year before Cori’s murder. It can be a blessing sometimes, say close friends, that she sometimes forgets what happened to her daughter.
The pain and grief suffered by this tight group of family and friends was evident Monday as they spoke to reporters about the young woman they loved and admired. Tears mixed with smiles and laughter.
“I think of her always bringing happiness and comfort to people,” said her stepmom Monica.