Professor accused of masterminding the 1995 murder of her rapist speaks out …

  • Norma Patricia Esparza, 39, is charged in the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez
  • She says Ramirez raped her and her then ex-boyfriend Gianni Van and others murdered Ramirez in revenge
  • Ramirez was found on the side of an Orange County road hacked to death with a meat cleaver
  • Esparza says she was later pressured to marry Van so that she would not have to testify against him
  • She claims she never told Van that she wanted Ramirez harmed
  • Police reopened the case after Esparza and Van divorced and
  • She was arrested upon reentering the U.S. for a conference in October 2012
  • Esparza was offered a plea deal but rejected it, saying it would be 'a lie'
  • She is a psychology professor in Geneva, Switzerland

By
Alex Greig

02:03 GMT, 1 December 2013


|

02:03 GMT, 1 December 2013

A psychology professor accused of masterminding the murder of her alleged rapist in Orange County, California, has spoken out, saying she is the victim of a violent rape and of her abusive ex-boyfriend, who murdered her rapist.

Patricia Esparza, 39, says 18 years ago she was forced to join a group of people, including her then ex-boyfriend Gianni Van, 44, in kidnapping Gonzalo Ramirez, 24, and witnessed them beating him as revenge for allegedly raping Esparza in her dorm room.

Esparza is one of four suspects to face charges for the 1995 killing of Ramirez, whose body was found hacked to death with a meat cleaver on the side of a road in Orange County. A fifth suspect died in July.

Cold case: Police arrested Esparza when she reentered the U.S. for an academic conference for a crime committed 18 years ago

Cold case: Police arrested Esparza when she reentered the U.S. for an academic conference for a crime committed 18 years ago

Accused: Norma Patricia Esparza listens during a news conference in Santa Ana, California, on Wednesday

Accused: Norma Patricia Esparza listens during a news conference in Santa Ana, California, on Wednesday

The married mother and professor at Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland, was offered a deal: plead guilty and face just three years behind bars. She refused the deal, saying she won't admit to something she didn't do.

If convicted for the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez, she could face a life sentence. Esparza spoke to NBC's Today from her prison cell yesterday.

She told Today that her then ex-boyfriend Gianni Van kidnapped Ramirez and forced her to be a party to a violent beating, then two weeks later made her marry him, knowing that as his spouse she could not be compelled to testify against him.

Esparza told the Pasadena Star News that she and Van had never lived together.

Speaking out: Esparza spoke to NBC's Today show about the case, saying she was forced into witnessing violence against Ramirez by Van but didn't know he had been murdered

Speaking out: Esparza spoke to NBC's Today show about the case, saying she was forced into witnessing violence against Ramirez by Van but didn't know he had been murdered

'Never, ever did I give any indication that I wanted Gonzalo Ramirez to be harmed,' she told Dateline.

'What I can tell you is that I was dragged, pressured, bullied, intimidated into that night when they actually took Gonzalo Ramirez,' she said.

'I never saw him dead. I didn't know that he had been dead. But I was terrorized by the violence that I witnessed.'

Esparza says she was not aware Ramirez had been murdered until weeks later when she was questioned by police.

Esparza, a professor at Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland, was arrested in the cold case murder late last year after re-entering the U.S. for an academic conference.

The four other suspects in the case have all pleaded not guilty.

Locked up: Esparza was taken into custody after rejecting a plea deal that would see her serve a sentence of three years

Locked up: Esparza was taken into custody after rejecting a plea deal that would see her serve a sentence of three years

Gianni Van

Shannon Gries

Accused: Ex-husband of Norma Patricia Esparza, Gianni Van (left), and Shannon Gries (right)

Diane Tran

Kody Tran

Involved: Diane Tran (left) has plead not guilty in the crime, and Kody Tran (right) would have been charged had he not shot himself in a standoff with police last year

'It just hurts me so much that I had
been raped, and here he [Van] is, instead of consoling me, he destroyed
the rest of my life,' she said.

'You know, the abuse was difficult, the rape was difficult, but dragging me through that night, it haunts me.'

Prosecutors say Esparza is playing the 'victim card' and is using her psychology knowledge to sway public opinion to her side.

'She’s a very sophisticated defendant,' prosecutor Susan Kang Schroeder told Pasadena Star News.

'She
has a Ph.D in psychology and she knows how to play on people’s
emotions, including the use of her 4-year-old daughter as a prop at the
press conference. This is a woman who is trying to act like the victim
in this case when the real victim was brutally murdered and the case
went unsolved for 20 years.'

Respected: Esparza, seen here in her capacity as a psychology professor teaching a class

Respected: Esparza, seen here in her capacity as a psychology professor teaching a class

Esparza refused the plea deal on November 20, saying, 'The principle of what they're asking me is to plead guilty to something that they know I am not responsible for,' she said.

She
will now face trial for one felony count of special circumstance murder
- a charge that can carry a life sentence without parole.

Prosecutors are calling the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez a 'revenge killing.'

They allege that on 15 April, 1995, a 20-year-old Esparza was at a bar with a group of friends
including former boyfriend Gianni Van, when she pointed out Ramirez,
claiming he had raped her in her dorm room at Pomona College a few
months earlier.

Wife and mother: Norma Patricia Esparza receives a hug from her four-year-old daughter, Arianna

Wife and mother: Norma Patricia Esparza receives a hug from her four-year-old daughter, Arianna

According to the prosecution, Esparza,
Van, Kody Tran, Diane Tran and Shannon 'Jailbird' Gries followed Ramirez
when he left the bar in the early hours of the following morning.

They intentionally rear-ended his vehicle, say prosecutors, forcing him to get out of the car to inspect the damage.

He was then kidnapped. His body was found on the side of Sand Canyon Road in Santa Ana hours later.

Esparza
says she was forced by the aggressive Van to identify Ramirez and then
coerced to keep the secret of his murder for almost two decades.

Diane Tran, Shannon Gries and Gianni Van have also been charged. All have pleaded not guilty.

Kody Tran died after shooting himself in a  standoff with police last year.

According to the Los Angeles Times,
Esparza says she met Ramirez in a Santa Ana nightclub. The next morning
he asked her to breakfast and offered to drive her and some friends
back to Pomona College.

Once in her dorm room, he raped Esparza, who went to a school nurse and was given the morning-after pill.

She was too ashamed to report the rape to authorities and the nurse did not advise her to do so.

Young family: Esparza married Jorge Mancillas following her divorce from Van and they have a four-year-old daughter

Young family: Esparza married Jorge Mancillas following her divorce from Van and they have a four-year-old daughter

Jailed: Norma Patricia Esparza, pictured with her husband, Jorge Mancillas, has been taken into custody

Jailed: Norma Patricia Esparza, pictured with her husband, Jorge Mancillas, has been taken into custody

'I don't think I was thinking at that
time,' she said. 'I felt ashamed. I felt guilty. I didn't want to come
forward because I didn't want my family to know.'

Julie Ann Rojas, who was Gries then-girlfriend, testified that she was with Van and Esparza the night Ramirez died.

Cold case: When investigators learned Esparza and Van were divorced, they re-opened the murder case of Gonzalo Ramirez

Cold case: When investigators learned Esparza and Van were divorced, they re-opened the murder case of Gonzalo Ramirez

She
said Van, Gries and Kody Tran attacked Ramirez while she and Esparza
went to a bar. After about an hour Roja and Esparza went to the
transmission shop owned by Kody Tran where Esparza said she saw Ramirez
tied and hanging from the ceiling.

Esparza's
current husband Jorge Mancillas, a world-renowned medical researcher, said that his wife was told that Ramirez was 'roughed up' and was unaware of the murder until weeks later when she was questioned by police.

Esparza, who says she suffered years of sexual abuse by her father as a child, told reporters at a news conference Wednesday 20 November that she lived in fear of Van for years after the attack.

'All I knew is that I wanted to survive,' she said.

'All I knew was that these people were dangerous and I just needed to stay quiet and withdraw and come out of that night alive.'

Senior deputy district attorney Scott Simmons said there is sufficient evidence 'to prove she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.'

Mancillas and Esparza's four-year-old daughter Arianna were in the courtroom as she was handcuffed.

The family lives in a small town in France on the Swiss border and Esparza is an assistant professor of psychology and counseling at Webster University.

She will return to court on December 23. 

Esparza and Mancillas have set up a petition at change.org to try to persuade Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas to drop the charges against Esparza.

'We are astonished that Norma Patricia, a rape victim, is now being treated as a criminal. We are also concerned about the effect this past year has had on her 4-year-old daughter and the long-term impact this will have if the situation is not resolved in her favor,' the petition reads.

'In continuing to pursue her you are sending a troubling message to other rape victims who already have a sense that they will not receive justice within the legal system.'


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