UPDATE, JUNE 21, 12:12 P.M.: Teodoro Bernal Nunez could get 41 years and eight months in state prison if he is convicted of murdering 27-year-old Omar Castillo and trying to fatally stab an ex-lover, prosecutors announced today. The Orange County District Attorney’s office charges Nunez, 38, of Los Angeles, with one felony count of murder, one felony count of domestic battery causing injury with a prior conviction of domestic battery causing injury, one felony count of kidnapping, one misdemeanor count of violation of a protective order, and sentencing enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon, and great bodily injury involving domestic violence. Senior Deputy District Attorney Keith Burke will ask a Santa Ana judge later today to keep Nunez behind bars without bail, the OCDA says. “At approximately 1:30 a.m. on June 18, 2016, Nunez is accused of driving a sport utility vehicle (SUV) to a home on the 1200 block of South Oak Street in Santa Ana,” reads the arraignment statement. “Nunez is accused of getting out of the vehicle holding a 12-inch knife and approaching 27-year-old Omar Castillo and Jane Doe, with whom he had previously been in a dating relationship. The defendant is accused of stabbing Castillo once in the chest and stabbing Jane Doe once in the abdomen and forcing her into his SUV. Castillo died at the scene as a result of the stab wound. Nunez is accused of fleeing the scene in the SUV with Jane Doe and driving to Brea.” That’s where an officer from that city pulled the SUV over for a traffic violation and found the woman bleeding, the Santa Ana Police Department previously disclosed.
ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 20, 5:28 A.M.: A 38-year-old man has been arrested for murder in an apparent If-I-can’t-have-her-no-one-else-can case.
Just after 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Santa Ana police officers were sent to a residence in the 1200 block of South Oak Street, where a witness said a man and woman had been stabbed and that the female was subsequently kidnapped by the male attacker, according to a press release.
Officers arrived to find a 27-year-old man lying on the front lawn of the residence, unconscious and unresponsive, police say.
Medics arrived and soon pronounced the unidentified fellow deceased.
Meanwhile, police officers in Brea spotted a vehicle in their city that matched the description of the one the attacker and the female victim rode away in, Santa Ana police say.
After a traffic stop for a vehicle code violation, the male driver was held and his bloodied 38-year-old passenger was taken to an area hospital with a severe stab wound, according to police, who did not release a name for her nor her medical condition.
But the press release does indicate that she had apparently been in “a previous dating relationship” with the attack suspect, “but to what extent is still under investigation.”
This much is known at this point: A court order restraining Teodoro Bernal Nunez from contacting the female victim “had been issued and was active,” police say.
He was to be booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and violation of a court order.
