A 39-year-old man was convicted Tuesday of stabbing his girlfriend to death in Huntington Beach.
Craig James Charron, 39, was convicted of first-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a knife. Charron, who is scheduled to be sentenced July 25, was convicted of killing 25-year-old Laura Sardinha in their apartment in the 8400 block of Jenny Drive on Sept. 2, 2020.
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Jurors began deliberations Monday afternoon and reached a verdict by Tuesday morning.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera noted Monday that three women testified during the trial that they were victims of domestic violence and had obtained restraining orders against the defendant.
Madera argued that Charron stabbed Sardinha twice in the chest and nearly slashed off her nose.
"That's intent to kill," Madera said as she made the case for first- degree murder.
"He intended to kill her," she said. "Nothing could be more crystal clear."
The prosecutor agued, "We've got the motive. He's mad. He has a problem with control. He's also disposed toward domestic violence."
Madera argued that Charron parked his car a significant distance from the apartment to plan his escape, but after the stabbing, he saw police outside and returned to the apartment, where he made self-inflicted wounds to fabricate a defense.
Charron testified during the trial that Sardinha was an avid motorcyclist and it was her preferred mode of transportation. He testified that after she received a $750,000 settlement in a motorcycle accident, she gave him money to help her negotiate a purchase of a Mini Cooper car that she also used and parked at their apartment building.
Because Sardinha was using both of the assigned parking spaces, that left the defendant to look for street parking, which was difficult in the dense neighborhood, he testified.
"He obviously has a motive to lie," Madera said of Charron's testimony.
She said Charron would "not answer questions directly" while on the stand.
Madera said "there was not heat of passion" evidence that would justify a lesser crime of second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.
"This was just an ambush, and a murder," she said.
Charron's attorney, Michael Guisti, argued there was reasonable doubt in the case since one of three bloody knives found in the apartment was not tested by the crime lab. He criticized investigators for declining to test one of the knives for the defendant's DNA to back up his claim of mutual combat.
"Is it reasonable to conclude it could have been used to stab him?" Guisti argued. "The prosecution realizes that is a weak part of the case."
Guisti acknowledged that the prior accusations of domestic violence, which included a phone video recording of him slapping one of the women in the face, were "not good. Domestic violence is horrible. You don't ever want that to happen."
But he noted that one of the women admitted during her testimony that she hit Charron out of jealousy after seeing him look at photos of other women on his phone.
Guisti argued that his client did not attempt to kill any of the other women he dated, despite the domestic violence allegations.
The attorney said that during the final conflict with the victim in the apartment, "Things go out of control... Heat of passion... He thought he had to defend himself and he went too far."
Madera countered that the victim's final voicemail to her mother during the conflict made her the most important witness in the trial.
"You don't hear the defendant on that, and his silence is deafening," Madera said. "He is not afraid. She is not attacking him. He is in control. She's screaming, `He's going to kill me.' And he's taking his time killing her. He's enjoying taking his time killing her."
The two met in June of 2020 and the relationship heated up quickly when they moved in together, but by August, the relationship was on rocky ground as she accused him of attacking her, according to Madera.
When Charron asked her via text where she was going on Aug. 15, 2020, she said, "locking myself in a box so you can't beat me anymore," according to Madera.
On Aug. 16, 2020, he demanded to know what she was texting her mother, and she said, tearfully, "You keep hitting me," according to Madera.
Some of the evidence in the trial included smartphone video the two took of each other.
In one video taken as she was trying to do school work on a laptop, he repeatedly asked her if he could have another girlfriend come over, Madera said.
She eventually went to the leasing office to ask the property manager for help in evicting Charron.
Charron testified that he saw the locks being changed in the apartment.
He had "reconnected" with an old girlfriend and that was who he was referring to when he asked the victim repeatedly if she could come over, Madera said.
"I was just being annoying," he said of the repeated request.
When his attorney asked him how he could be heard accusing her of hitting him when she was several feet away, he said, "I believe it was to get her attention."
Charron said he followed Sardinha down to the leasing office "to talk to her," and when he spotted her talking to the property manager, he said he "went for a walk" to cool down.
When Sardinha returned to the apartment and got the locks changed, she received multiple calls from the defendant but ignored them, Madera said.
When Charron texted that he wanted to get his things, she advised him to coordinate that through the leasing office, Madera said.
Sardinha called her best friend and added her mother to the call when they heard the victim say, "Oh my (expletive) God, he's here," according to Madera.
"They heard Laura yelling and screaming, `That hurts, please stop,"' Madera said.
The two called 911, and while her mother was on the line with a dispatcher, a call from her daughter went to voicemail, Madera said. In the voicemail, the victim was heard saying, "He's going to kill me. ... Oh my God, get away from me,"' Madera said.
The victim was heard "screaming until the line goes dead," Madera said.
When police arrived, they found the victim's body in the bathroom with two stab wounds to the chest and multiple other slashing wounds, Madera said.
Charron said when he was hospitalized after Sardinha was killed, he had to have staples in his neck and a portion of his lung removed.
"Did you want her to die?" Guisti asked him.
"No," he said.
"You miss her?"
"Yeah. Gosh. Yes," he said.
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