SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) – Norma Patricia Esparza was a Southern California college student in 1995 when she says she was raped by a man she met at a bar.
Weeks later, she went back to the same spot and pointed him out to her ex-boyfriend. He and two others followed Gonzalo Ramirez out of the bar, kidnapped him and hacked him to death with a meat cleaver, authorities say.
For the next 17 years, the killing went unsolved and Esparza built her life, earning a doctorate, working as a psychology professor in Switzerland and serving as a consultant to the World Health Organization. She started a family.
But police didn’t stop investigating, and they arrested Esparza and the others in 2012. She insisted she was innocent but later accepted a plea deal. On Friday, 21 years after the killing, Esparza was sentenced to six years in prison for her role.
She was not there when Ramirez was killed, but Esparza, now 41, pointed him out to his assailants, said her attorney, Jack Earley.