Trista Ann Spicer testified on Monday, Oct. 27, that she killed her boyfriend in self-defense at her home in San Bernardino in 2014, telling jurors hearing her murder trial that she smashed his skull with a two-handed blow of a cast-iron skillet and sliced his throat with a knife he had stabbed her with a few minutes earlier as he threatened to kill her.
The force of the blows broke the pan’s handle, said Spicer, 46.
“All I could think was I was going to die,” Spicer told defense attorney Gary W. Spicer at the San Bernardino Justice Center.
Spicer has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder.
Spicer also acknowledged that with the help of a friend, she wrapped 42-year-old Eric Mercado’s body in an air mattress and concealed it in a storage area beneath concrete steps in the backyard. She testified that a homeless acquaintance she knew only by the name “Seven” did the brickwork that hid the body in what police described as a “makeshift tomb.”
Spicer put Mercado’s body out of sight, she told Smith, because she was afraid of “consequences” from Mercado’s family and friends.
Later elaborating, Spicer said she initially believed that Mercado was “respected” by everyone, only to learn later they were terrified of him.
The fatal attack, she said, culminated months of what became daily physical and verbal abuse from Mercado, interspersed with periods of kindness, gentle sex and frequent drug abuse by the couple.
Mercado was reported missing in October of 2014, and Spicer continually denied to his family that she knew his whereabouts.It wasn’t until she learned she would have to move out when her family announced plans in 2022 to sell the house that she confided in her new boyfriend the location of the body so they could move it. That never happened.
That boyfriend, Waylan Gentry, had testified at Spicer’s preliminary hearing that he held onto that secret for eight months before he called police at his mother’s urging.
Spicer testified Monday that Mercado was controlling — forcing her to staple the curtains shut so no one could see her and demanding that she sit on the floor naked without moving while he was gone.
At one point, Spicer testified, Mercado stuck a gun into Spicer’s mouth and demanded that she do something vulgar. He also beat her with a belt and an electrical cord, Spicer said. Another time, he set fire to a couch and threatened to burn down the house with her ailing grandfather in it.
The grandfather was unaware of the fire in the pool house, Spicer said. He died shortly after Spicer met Mercado.
“I didn’t ever object to what he wanted,” Spicer said. “He told me he couldn’t beat me the way he wanted to because I complied.”
Under cross-examination from San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Carrillo, Spicer admitted she told almost nobody about the abuse — not relatives, friends or the police, even though her mother was scheduled to visit from Ohio around the time of Mercado’s death. Spicer said she disguised the marks on her face with makeup. Nor did she report the couch fire to authorities, she said.
“Did you tell anyone you were being held prisoner in your own home?” Carrillo asked.
“No,” Spicer said.
Mercado’s family said after Spicer’s arrest that they believed the couple were getting along.
Jurors, once testimony concludes, will have to decide whether the woman who lied about Mercado’s slaying for eight years told the truth Monday when she said she killed him in self-defense after failing to report the months of abuse that she said left her physically and mentally scarred.
Spicer also testified Monday that after killing Mercado, she had two drug-infused relationships with men that she left after episodes of violence.
Spicer had been clean for six years after overcoming a drug addiction until one day, shortly after meeting Mercado, he offered her meth. She relapsed.
A couple of weeks later, he hit her for the first time when she turned around to answer a question.
“My ears were ringing. My whole side of my face was on fire,” she testified.
At first, Spicer told Smith, the assaults came every few weeks in the approximate year she dated Mercado. Eventually, she said, there were “hundreds” of beatings. “Getting hit hurts,” Spicer said. “Getting hit hurts the next day.”
“What do you see when you look in the mirror?” Smith asked.
“Trash,” Spicer replied. “I worked so hard and I lost it all.”
On the day of the slaying in October 2014, Spicer testified, Mercado came home around midnight, awakened her and asked for meth. But they were all out. She reheated beans and meat for him, and he told her to sit on the couch naked. When the food wasn’t to his liking, he threw it on her, grabbed her by the hair, threatened to kill her and then stabbed her, Spicer said, pointing to her neck.
Mercado then asked her to get him coffee.
Spicer went into the kitchen, where she grabbed a 10-inch diameter pan.
“I came around the corner of the kitchen screaming at him,” she testified. “I raised the pan and I hit him in the head. He sat up and turned to me and I hit him (again).” He then grabbed her wrist. “He tried to stand and I hit him again.”
Carrillo questioned Spicer’s account, noting testimony from the coroner that the blows would have killed Mercado within “seconds.” Spicer stuck to her statement.
Spicer said she ran out of the house and locked herself in the pool house until daylight. She then returned to the main house and found Mercado dead.
“It was pretty bad,” she said.
Testimony was expected to continue on Tuesday morning.