Trista Ann Spicer was a victim of frequent beatings by boyfriend Eric Mercado and in imminent danger of getting killed by him that 2014 night — when she grabbed a cast-iron skillet and struck fatal blows to his head, her attorney said during closing arguments of her murder trial at the San Bernardino Justice Center.
Spicer then sealed Mercado’s body beneath concrete steps in the backyard of her San Bernardino home, concealing his death from his family and friends because she feared they would harm her, attorney Gary W. Smith told jurors on Thursday, Oct. 30.
San Bernardino police had described the area holding Mercado’s body as a “makeshift tomb.”
“If you find her belief is true … that she was in imminent danger … then you must find her not guilty, because that is self-defense,” Smith said.
Spicer, now 46, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder.
Mercado had been listed as a missing person for eight years until 2022, when a subsequent boyfriend of Spicer tipped off authorities about the location of the body, resulting in Spicer’s arrest.
San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Carrillo told jurors that based on the angles at which the blows were delivered, the injuries could only have been inflicted on a person who was lying down, asleep on the dining room loveseat where Mercado was killed.
Carrillo said Mercado’s skull was “obliterated.”
“This was a first-degree murder,” Carrillo told jurors. “She thought about it. She considered it. She weighed the consequences.”
Spicer eventually told new boyfriend Waylan Gentry that she had killed Mercado, he has testified.
Spicer met Mercado around the beginning of 2014.
“She thought he was beautiful,” Smith said. “She thought all the men around him respected him, because they did what he asked.”
Spicer testified that she had been clean of her meth addiction for six years when one night Mercado offered her a drag off of a meth pipe. She relapsed, and then she said physical violence followed.
“He took her sense of safety,” Smith said. “He took her sense of well-being … because he started beating her. What she learned, it was not respect, it was fear.”
Spicer said she did not tell friends, family members or police about what she characterized as “hundreds” of physical or verbal-abuse episodes.
“Her story is inconsistent with actual evidence,” Carrillo said.
The prosecutor said that Spicer got rid of seat cushions and carpeting that could have been bloodied, reflecting a “consciousness of guilt.”
But Smith said it was “undisputed” that Mercado beat Spicer over the course of the year they were together.
Smith reminded jurors of expert testimony that victims of domestic violence don’t always report abuse.
“Eric Mercado was a violent and dangerous man,” Smith said. “He was one who you don’t tell on because it would have been consequential.”
On the night of the slaying in October 2014, Spicer has testified, Mercado, 42, came home around midnight, awakened her and asked for meth. But they were all out.
She reheated dinner 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.
Mercado then asked her to get him coffee. Spicer went into the kitchen, where she grabbed a pan, came to the dining room and hit Mercado on the head with it several times, she testified. She also cut his throat with the knife he had dropped. She testified that Mercado then attempted to stand up — he grabbed her wrist and put his hands up to protect himself.
Carrillo, the prosecutor, said that because a coroner testified that Mercado would have died within “seconds,” Spicer’s account didn’t ring true.
“There is no immediate danger in that moment, which is the requirement for self-defense,” Carrillo said.
Jurors began deliberating on Thursday, Oct 30. They can return a verdict of guilty for first-degree murder, second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter — or for not guilty of any offense.