Anaheim man on trial for allegedly killing wife, with defense saying woman took her own life

SANTA ANA – Trial began Thursday for a husband accused of killing his wife, with the case centering on whether the Anaheim woman was murdered or if she took her own life.

Alan Ybarra Rojas, 37, is facing a murder charge with a sentencing enhancement for the use of a firearm in connection to the shooting of his wife, Daisy May Guido, 36, on Feb. 20, 2015.

Guido, a mother of five who lived with Rojas and their three younger children in an apartment in the 1300 block of West Diamond Street, died at a hospital several days after officers responding to a 911 call from Rojas found her in the family’s garage with a gunshot wound to the head.

During his opening statements to jurors, Deputy District Attorney Steve McGreevy said Rojas told 911 dispatchers that Guido had fallen in their garage.

While talking to officers at the scene, Guido at one point said his wife had shot herself, then claimed that there wasn’t a gun in the home, McGreevy said. Officers later found a gun, a Colt revolver, in a drawer in the couple’s bedroom, the prosecutor added.

McGreevy also showed jurors photographs of bruises found on Guido’s chest, shoulders and left arm after the shooting, despite paramedics not performing CPR on her.

“This case is a murder, it is not a suicide,” McGreevy told jurors.

Rojas’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Isabel Apkarian, told jurors that Rojas made a “stupid decision” to move the gun, but denied that he had shot his wife.

She attributed his statements to the officers to Rojas being distracted and scared as he awaited the arrival of paramedics, and said the bruises on Guido’s body were from hospital workers trying to save the woman’s life.

Apkarian noted that Guido’s oldest daughter had recently run away from the family home, and that a month before her death Guido had an abortion following several difficult pregnancies. The defense attorney also outlined for jurors the panicked statements Rojas made to 911 operators.

“My god, please, what did she do?” Apkarian quoted Rojas as saying on the recorded 911 call. “My God. Please, my God, please don’t take her from me.”

“In this case, you have an innocent man,” the defense attorney told jurors.

Testimony in the trial continues next week at the Orange County Superior Courthouse in Santa Ana.