SANTA ANA – After holding out for nearly a year, Dr. Norma Patricia Esparza abruptly pleaded guilty Friday morning to manslaughter in the death 19 years ago of a man she says raped her.

Esparza, a psychology professor who lives in France, will be sentenced to six years in state prison under the plea agreement. She could have gotten half that time if she accepted a plea deal offered in November 2013.

But Esparza then insisted she was innocent in the group killing of 24-year-old Gonzalo Ramirez, who was hacked to death with a meat cleaver on April 16, 1995, and dumped along a dead-end road in Irvine.

Her incarceration became an international cause celebre, as victims’ groups and sexual assault survivors called for her release.

On Friday, Esparza, wearing a blue jail jumpsuit, spoke in a quiet voice when Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett asked whether she wanted him to accept her guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter. She said, “Yes.”

Esparza, 40, has been in jail since November. Her lawyer, Jack Earley, said she could be released in 2017.

As part of the plea, Esparza has agreed to testify against former boyfriend Gianni Anthony Van and Shannon Ray Gries, who are charged with murder. Their trial is scheduled for January.

Outside the courtroom, Earley told Esparza’s supporters – some wearing T-shirts with the phrase “#Set Patricia Free” – that their support has given her the strength to get through the ordeal.

The decision to plead guilty was a difficult one, Earley said, but Esparza ultimately decided she could not risk a life sentence for murder.

“She has a young daughter,” Earley said. “She wants to guarantee that she’ll be out sometime, be able to raise her child. ... If she was not a mother and had no children, she probably would have proceeded to trial.”

Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray said the plea bargain wasn’t a sign the prosecution believed Esparza is innocent of murder. If she hadn’t agreed to testify, she would not have been offered the plea, Murray said.

Testifying at trial, Earley said, will give Esparza the opportunity to say publicly she did not want Ramirez killed and didn’t approve of violence.

“She didn’t want the trial to be that a killing was done in her name,” Earley said.

He added that Esparza now, with the perspective of time and maturity, wishes she had acted differently, perhaps by going to the police after she was raped. But Earley said her case highlights how difficult it can be for victims to come forward.

Esparza’s husband, Jorge Mancillas, was in court but declined to comment. The couple’s 4-year-old daughter also was at the courthouse, wearing a pink dress and playing with a princess doll in the hallway.

While the murder case stymied police for more than a decade, Esparza built her career as a psychologist and educator, moving from Santa Ana to a little town in France, near the Swiss border. She teaches at Webster University in Geneva.

Investigators got a break when Esparza broke her silence after 17 years. She told police that her ex-boyfriend searched out Ramirez for raping her in her dorm room at Pomona College.

Saying she had nothing to do with the death, Esparza agreed to testify against those she said were more actively involved.

But during a court hearing in November 2013, she refused to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, which would have meant her release in 18 months with good-time credits. A judge revoked her bail after she refused the plea offer, and she was immediately taken to jail. Prosecutors then found another key witness who they said implicated Esparza in the killing.

Supporters of Esparza attended Friday’s hearing, as they have since she was charged. Word of the case spread on social media and through campus organizations. Occidential College student Rachel Buckner, who was in court and wore a “#Set Patricia Free” shirt, said she’s part of an international group that holds weekly meetings over Skype to discuss Esparza’s case and the issues of sexual assault and rape on campus.

Diane Tran, an Esparza acquaintance, already agreed to testify in the case and has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

According to police, Tran said Van and some friends traveled in 1995 to Esparza's dorm room at Pomona College to discuss the rape, which Esparza said took place days before. Esparza told Van that Ramirez assaulted her a day after she met him at a Santa Ana nightclub.

Inside Esparza's dorm room, Van and the others hatched a plan for Esparza to point out Ramirez at the same nightclub so they could beat him up, according to testimony at Esparza’s preliminary hearing.

But on the night of the attack – as Esparza, Van, Tran, Gries, Julie Ann Rocha and Tran's husband, Kody, rode in the same van to the El Cortez nightclub – Van discussed how they were going to grab Ramirez and kill him.

Esparza, according to Tran’s story, nodded more or less in agreement at how it was going to happen.

According to testimony, the group went inside the club, Van and Esparza holding hands. Within minutes, Esparza tugged on Van's arm and pointed out Ramirez.

The plan was to follow Ramirez out of the club, ram his pickup and kidnap him when he got out.

Kendrick said Ramirez was taken to a Costa Mesa transmission shop owned by Kody Tran.

Diane Tran and Esparza also were brought to the shop, where they saw Ramirez sitting with his legs crossed on the wood floor, his hands tied and a cloth over his head.

Ramirez said something in Spanish to Esparza, which she translated for Diane Tran: "Why are you doing this, little one?" according to testimony.

Kody Tran killed himself in an unrelated police standoff in 2012, while Rocha has not been charged.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com or ehartley@ocregister.com

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