GUILTY OR - Ana Meraz, 32, stabbed to death, Jackson County, 3 May 2005

originally posted by dreamweaver

http://archive.mailtribune.com/archi...ov/11697n1.htm
'snipped respectfully'

Ana Meraz called 9-1-1 from her cell phone at about 6 a.m. on May 3. She requested urgent medical attention before an unidentified man took the phone and said he had stopped to assist Meraz after seeing her vehicle weaving in traffic, Oregon State Police investigators said.

OSP troopers and medics located Meraz's bleeding body lying beside her idling Chrysler Sebring convertible on the southbound shoulder of Interstate 5 near milepost 11. Stabbed multiple times, she died moments later, police said.

Her suspected murderer, 31-year-old Jose Perez Silva, formerly of Phoenix, eluded police and is believed to be in Mexico. The Jackson County District Attorney's Office charged Perez with the crime and issued a warrant for his arrest. He and Meraz, who lived on Connell Avenue, were acquainted through a local church. Investigators said they did not know whether the unidentified man who took the phone was Perez.

Jose Perez-Silva was arrested in late May of 2009 for the murder of Ana Meraz.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/arrest_made_in_mexico_in_2005.html

During the trial, a frantic 911 call was played that captured both Meraz and Silva on tape. His defense team was arguing for manslaughter.

http://www.dailytidings.com/article/20110826/NEWS02/108260302

Perez-Silva attacked Meraz with a box cutter and left her bleeding on the side of the freeway with multiple wounds that would prove fatal. That is murder, said prosecutor Eric Dames in opening statements at the bench trial.

"He's fully admitted to his attack on Ana Meraz. He knew that stabbing her would kill her," Dames said.

Defense attorneys concede Perez-Silva stabbed and slashed the 32-year-old mother in an altercation along the freeway. However, the defense argues, Perez-Silva's extreme emotional disturbance and medical problems left him without the intent to murder, so he should be found guilty only of manslaughter.

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Silva is found guilty for the murder of Ana Meraz.

"Phoenix man gets 25 years in killing"

http://www.dailytidings.com/article/20110901/NEWS02/109010306

A 35-year-old Phoenix man who fatally stabbed his girlfriend along Interstate 5 in May 2005 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Tim Gerking ruled that Jose Perez-Silva must spend at least 25 years behind bars. He will get credit for time served since his arrest near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in late May 2009.

"I don't have words to express the amount of pain that was caused by what I did," Perez-Silva said before he was sentenced. Speaking through an interpreter, Perez-Silva told the court he wished he could get 100 years and that his victim, Ana Berthan Meraz, was alive.

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