Victim of Year's Third Domestic Violence Homicide Identified

By Jorge Casuso

Oct. 2 -- The 21-year-old woman who was fatally stabbed by her estranged husband on the lawn of City Hall Saturday -- marking the third domestic violence homicide in Santa Monica this year -- is identified in court documents as Maria Leticia.

The LA County Coroner's Office has not released the name pending notification of her next of kin in Mexico. Efforts to reach the family, which may live in a remote part of the country, have been unsuccessful, a coroner's spokesman said.

"We talked to the uncle who lives in Santa Diego and who was contacting the Mexican consulate," said Lt. Fred Corral, of the LA County Coroners investigation division. "Family members were also going to try to contact them."

Leticia was confronted by her estranged husband, Juan Carlos Vasquez, 27, Saturday morning as she headed for the police department lobby with her son and her domestic violence advocate for a child custody visitation exchange.

Vasquez attacked her with a knife he pulled from his pocket in the presence of more than 100 homeless who were on the City Hall lawn for a free meals and clothes exchange program.

According to an autopsy conducted by the coroner's office Monday, Leticia's death was "due to multiple sharp force injuries" to the upper torso. She was taken to Santa Monica UCLA Hospital, where she died about an hour after the stabbing.

According to sources familiar with the investigation Leticia -- who had been living with her six-year-old son in a battered woman's shelter in Santa Clarita -- was clutching her court order when she was stabbed.

After attacking his wife, Vasquez walked several feet and stabbed himself several times in the chest, police said. He immediately fell to the ground wounded and died on the scene, police said. His death -- like his wife's -- was due to self-inflicted "multiple sharp force injuries" to the upper torso.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, Vasquez's chest bore a tattoo of a stabbed heart.

Stabbing is an uncommon method of suicide, said Corral. "It happens, but it's rare. Most of your suicides are the result of gunshot wounds, an overdose or jumping," he said.

"Him doing it with blood on the knife, it seemed he was set on doing what he was going to do," Corral said. "That's very premeditated. He knew what he was going to do."

The incident was the sixth homicide in Santa Monica this year, three of them the result of domestic violence.

Two weeks earlier, Julie Ann D'Anjolell, 51, was shot in the head by her husband during a domestic dispute in their apartment on the 900 block of Euclid. Her husband, Stephen D'Anjolell, 52, then shot himself in the head, police said.

On March 23, Santa Monica police discovered the body of a 37-year-old woman in an apartment in the 2300 block of Ocean Park Boulevard. She had apparently been murdered by her estranged husband William Wheeler, Jr. 41, who was wanted for the homicide of 66-year-old Anna Christina Hughes.