Stepfather Charged With Molesting 9-year-old Girl

The man accused of murdering his 9-year-old stepdaughter and stabbing himself before their discovery in a Long Beach church parking lot was charged Tuesday with sexual crimes that may suggest why he allegedly killed her.

Jacinto Zuniga Trujillo, 31, will be formally arraigned May 22 in Long Beach Superior Court Dept. J. A criminal complaint was filed that charged him with murder with a special circumstance and five counts of oral copulation/sexual penetration of a child under 10, for sex acts that he's charged with committing between Nov. 1 and Saturday.

That's the same day the bodies of the girl and Trujillo were found near Los Altos United Methodist Church. The L.A. County District Attorney's Office announced that a passerby found the pair, and charged Trujillo with stabbing to death the girl then stabbing himself in an apparent suicide attempt. Long Beach Police Department said Trujillo had lacerations on multiple parts of his body.

The special circumstance allegation must be found by a jury before a death sentence may be sought, and the D.A. stated that a decision on whether to seek the death penalty would be made later in the trial.

In this case, prosecutors allege that the child, identified in the complaint as Xiomara J., was intentionally murdered because she witnessed a crime. D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said that crime was the sex acts that Trujillo is charged with committing over six months.

The girl is one of six sisters, some of whom were interviewed with their mother on TV news this past weekend near a floral memorial created beneath the dumpster where the bodies were found at 11 a.m. Saturday. A note of some sort was reportedly written in blood on the side of the dumpster, which was filmed on TV news.

 Trujillo was found lying nearby with self-inflicted wounds thought to be
the result of a suicide attempt. The witness reported a great deal of blood at the scene and Trujillo was hospitalized, but appeared in court Tuesday.
  Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek a death sentence against
Trujillo, who is being held without bail.

-- City News Service contributed to this report.