A state appeals court panel Wednesday upheld a man's conviction for fatally stabbing his girlfriend nearly three years ago.
The three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that the trial court abused its discretion in denying Victor Sosa's request to bar the prosecution from referring to a "sexual assault kit" by that name given that he was not charged with sexually assaulting the 19-year-old victim, Daisy De La O.
In their 13-page ruling, the appellate court justices noted that "the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt precluded any reasonable probability of a different result," and that Sosa has "not demonstrated a reasonable probability that the jury would have reach a different result if the sexual assault kit had been called by a different name."
Sosa, now 28, was convicted in May 2022 of first-degree murder.
Jurors also found true an allegation that he used a knife during the commission of the crime.
The young woman -- who died from multiple sharp force injuries -- was found dead Feb. 23, 2021, inside a rug next to a trash container in an alleyway in the 1400 block of Long Beach Boulevard in an unincorporated area bordering Compton.
Sosa's DNA was found in a bloodstain from the bottom of the rug and on a knife discovered nearby that also contained DNA from the victim, who suffered multiple sharp force type injuries on the right side of her head and neck, according to the appellate court panel's ruling.
Investigators identified her boyfriend as the suspected killer and said he fled the scene before authorities arrived. His mother subsequently filed a missing person's report involving her son, who had failed to return home, the justices noted.
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"Defendant did not reply to his mother's texts or contact her for the next two weeks, and then he met her away from their home, asking for money," Associate Justice Victoria Chavez wrote on behalf of the panel. "The inference that defendant was conscious of his guilt was strengthened by his arrest at the Mexican border more than four months after Daisy was killed."
Sosa is serving a 26-years-to-life state prison sentence.
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