strangling and beating a woman with a tow hitch in his pickup truck<\/a> when she refused to spend more time with him following a sex act in Anaheim.<\/p>\nAbdulaziz Munther Alubidy, who is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 12, was convicted of first-degree with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. Alubidy was convicted of killing 56-year-old Jessie Villesca on July 30, 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little more than five years ago Jessie Villesca made a choice,\u201d Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Moore said in his opening statement of the trial. \u201cShe made a choice to get into the truck driven by the defendant who beat and brutally strangled her to death. And why? Because she basically said no to him. She hurt his feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Villesca was struggling with substance abuse and turning to prostitution at the time, Moore said.<\/p>\n
Alubidy was in the habit of parking his Toyota Tundra around 540 N. Magnolia Ave., where he knew Villesca worked as a prostitute, Moore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was watching porn on his phone\u201d when he \u201ccalled her over and propositioned her,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey agreed to $20\u201d for a sex act, Moore said, and drove to a more remote spot in an industrial area at Brookhurst Street and Crescent Avenue.<\/p>\n
Villesca\u2019s request for more money infuriated Alubidy, who felt she was \u201crushing him,\u201d and rejected his desire for her \u201cto stay longer\u201d with him, Moore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis refusal, this rejection is what set him off,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Villesca attempted to bail out of the truck, but he pulled her back in, prompting her then to \u201cbeg for her life,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Villesca said she would do anything he wanted, \u201cBut he wasn\u2019t having that,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n
Alubidy grabbed a trailer tow hitch and bludgeoned the 5-foot-tall, 130-pound victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe fought back, scratched him, but he killed her in the back of that truck,\u201d Moore said. \u201cHe overwhelmed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alubidy bound Villesca with blue painters tape and headed south on the Santa Ana (5) Freeway, continuing to beat her with the tow hitch when he thought she was still alive, according to the prosecutor.<\/p>\n
Alubidy exited the freeway in the San Marcos area of San Diego County, where his erratic driving led to a crash, authorities said. With his truck disabled, Alubidy ran away.<\/p>\n
A San Diego County sheriff\u2019s deputy found Alubidy about a quarter-mile away, Moore said. He had to be subdued with a Taser, Moore added.<\/p>\n
Another sheriff\u2019s deputy who responded to the collision spotted blood seeping from the truck, leading to the discovery of the victim\u2019s body, Moore said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a self-defense case,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThis is not manslaughter. This is murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alubidy\u2019s attorney, Bobby Shui of the Orange County Public Defender\u2019s Office, acknowledged that his client \u201ctook the life of Jessie Villesca \u2026 It wasn\u2019t what he intended, but he admits to it. We\u2019re here to figure out why this happened and how it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alubidy and Villesca \u201cmade a deal, money for her time,\u201d Shui said. \u201cThey argued about the terms of the deal.\u201d The argument led to a \u201cfight and it gets out of hand,\u201d Shui said.<\/p>\n
After he struck the victim with the tow hitch and subdued her, \u201cHe didn\u2019t know what he would do,\u201d Shui continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he was trying to do was to end it, commit suicide,\u201d Shui alleged.<\/p>\n
Alubidy contemplated \u201cdriving into the ocean,\u201d his attorney said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By PAUL ANDERSON SANTA ANA \u2013 A 35-year-old man was convicted Tuesday of strangling and beating a woman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,138,134,100,611,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-5164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-homicide","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-orange-county","16":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}