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Civil Liberties

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alp227

(32,519 posts)
Wed Feb 29, 2012, 01:39 AM Feb 2012

Oakland man guilty of murder - no body of victim [View all]

An Oakland man was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for killing his ex-girlfriend in 2004 even though her body hasn't been found.

It is a case with similarities to that of Hans Reiser, who led police to his wife's body after he was convicted of murdering her in 2008.

Eric Mora, 55, showed no emotion when the verdict was read in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland. He faces 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced May 25 by Judge Vern Nakahara for killing Cynthia Alonzo.

(...)

Alonzo was 48 when she failed to show up at a Thanksgiving dinner with her family in San Francisco in 2004. Her blood was found in his home on the 6200 block of Brookside Avenue in the Oakland hills, authorities said. Mora also had a deep cut to his hand, prosecutors said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/28/BASS1NDFOK.DTL

Was the standard for conviction flimsy, given that investigators never found Alonzo's body for further evidence beyond the bloodstains and the suspect's hand wound?

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Circumstantial evidence is often used. MrSlayer Feb 2012 #1
+1000 fe6252fes Jun 2012 #6
I'd have to have a heck of a lot more to convict Live and Learn Feb 2012 #2
What happened to habeas corpus? Viva_Daddy Mar 2012 #3
Innocent until proven . . . xrayvision2005 May 2012 #4
+1 padem196645 Jun 2012 #5
Easy answer Spryguy Aug 2012 #7
He's got one of the worst cases of vitiligo since Michael Jackson jberryhill Sep 2012 #8
I retract... Spryguy Oct 2012 #10
"Was the standard for conviction flimsy?" jberryhill Sep 2012 #9
Probably, it should be near impossible to get a conviction in such a situation TheKentuckian Jan 2013 #11
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