Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
A 59-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of murdering his girlfriend — who wrote his initials in her own blood — in her Beverly Hills apartment nearly five years ago.
Jurors found James Duane Grzeslo guilty of first-degree murder for the Oct. 26, 2011 killing of Cathy Carrasco-Zanini, according to Deputy District Attorney Keri Modder.
The jury also found true an allegation that Grzeslo used a knife during the commission of the crime.
While the 58-year-old woman was dying, she crawled down a hallway and wrote the defendant’s initials — JG — in her own blood, the prosecutor said.
Authorities were summoned to the woman’s apartment in the 100 block of North Hamilton Drive after Grzeslo told a therapist that he was having nightmares that he had killed the woman, the prosecutor said. Her throat had been slit.
The couple had been having problems and were going to therapy together, Modder said.
“I think the evidence was overwhelming,” the prosecutor said of the case against Grzeslo.
Grzeslo — who acted as his own attorney during the trial — is facing 26 years to life in state prison. He is set to be sentenced Sept. 19 at the Airport Branch Courthouse in Los Angeles.
–City News Service
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