Jul 23, 2008 9:09 pm US/Pacific
SF Woman Guilty Of Crushing Another Woman To Death
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ―
A jury Tuesday convicted a San Francisco woman for crushing another woman to death with her body during an argument over drugs inside a downtown hotel in 2007, the District Attorney's Office reported Wednesday.
Paula Benavidez, 37, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, after a four-week trial in San Francisco Superior Court, according to prosecutors.
Benavidez was arrested May 9, 2007, about two weeks after police found the body of 50-year-old Maureen Clark, also a city resident, inside an apartment Benavidez had been renting at the low-rent Auburn Hotel, in the 400 block of Minna Street in the city's South of Market district.
Police were called to the building on the night of April 26 to evict Benavidez, but when they arrived, they found Clark's body.
She had been beaten on her head and body, had a black eye and cuts on her lips, broken and hemorrhaging ribs, and a human bite mark on her buttocks, prosecutors said.
Police later learned that Benavidez had been in the room earlier, and during an interview with detectives, Benavidez admitted getting angry at Clark and beating her, but denied killing her.
A medical examiner testified that Clark had died of "compressional asphyxia," having been crushed to death in a manner consistent with the more than 200-pound Benavidez sitting on Clark's chest or back. DNA from the bite mark was also positively linked to Benavidez.
"This was my first, I call it, sitting," prosecutor Scot Clark said of the unusual case. "I've done shootings, stabbings, even a souping." The souping—"a workplace argument," Clark described—was not fatal.
According to Clark, both women in this case "were, kind of, folks that lived at the margin of society."
Benavidez herself described the incident to jurors during the trial, Clark said.
The victim, "a little lady" of only 110 pounds, Clark said, had followed Benavidez into her apartment trying to buy speed from her, "and was quite persistent," he said.
"It was all over dope," said Clark. "Ms. Benavidez lost her temper, and this was the result. But I don't believe they had ever met before that day. It was just a real unfortunate crossing of paths."
"It could not have been self-defense," Clark added, "because the victim was so slight and could not pose a physical threat to anybody."
Benavidez "had 100 pounds on her, at the least," Clark said. "If there was a fight, it wasn't a fair fight."
Benavidez, who faces up to 11 years in prison, is due back in court Aug. 27 to set a sentencing date.
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