BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 They’d planned a celebration.<\/p>\n
But when Rafael Estrada crashed the party, events quickly took a turn for the worse \u2014 and then the horrific.<\/p>\n
Estrada, 45, allegedly argued with and followed his estranged wife to a bedroom where he stabbed her in the neck with a pocketknife in front of at least one of her children.<\/p>\n
Taylor Danay Dominguez Estrada, 32, bled out and died at the scene.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Rafael Estrada’s trial on charges including first-degree murder began in front of Judge Judith K. Dulcich.<\/p>\n
17 News is live blogging the proceedings.<\/p>\n
Estrada is represented by Deputy Public Defender Jacob Evans, and the case is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Leanne Wilder.<\/p>\n
The stabbing happened May 28 of last year at a family gathering in east Bakersfield that was held after an eighth-grade graduation party.<\/p>\n
Taylor Estrada had made it clear Rafael Estrada wasn’t invited, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
He showed up anyway, smelling of alcohol and slurring his words as he argued about divorce papers Taylor Estrada had asked him to sign, witnesses told sheriff’s investigators<\/p>\n
After the stabbing, Rafael Estrada got in a pickup and led arriving deputies on a chase that ended about 10 miles away in the parking lot of a church in the 9900 block of Ramos Avenue, off Taft Highway.<\/p>\n
He was taken into custody following a struggle during which deputies released a K-9 and used force to bring him to the ground, according to the documents. A pocketknife and box cutter were found on him, according to the sheriff’s office.<\/p>\n
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