Jury selection begins for trial of man accused of killing girlfriend
Jury selection got underway today for the trial of a 66-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing his girlfriend during a frenzied attack in Palm Springs ignited when she told him that their relationship was finished.
Miguel Hernandez Toscano is charged with first-degree murder, child cruelty and a sentence-enhancing allegation of using a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony for the 2022 slaying of 48-year-old Ernestina Oropeza.
Toscano's case was transferred from the Larson Justice Center in Indio to the Riverside Hall of Justice on Monday, when Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jason Armand ruled on a series of pretrial motions.
On Tuesday morning, the judge summoned panels of prospective jurors to the downtown courthouse for screening as to their availability and qualifications. Jury selection is expected to continue to the end of the week.
Toscano is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.
If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in state prison.
According a trial brief filed by the prosecution, Toscano and Oropeza were employed at a Coachella Valley casino and became romantically involved after meeting on the job. The roughly five-month-long relationship turned rocky in February 2022 when Toscano discovered the victim had been communicating with another man, whom she described as a friend.
On March 1, Toscano, Oropeza and her three daughters, ages 9, 7 and 4, went to dinner at a friend's house in Desert Hot Springs, but during the drive there and the return trip to Oropeza's apartment at 1799 E. Arenas Road in Palm Springs, she and the defendant argued about her interest in the other man, whose identity was not disclosed in court papers.
Before leaving the apartment, Toscano offered to retrieve his girlfriend's children from school the following day as a favor, but Oropeza declined the offer and replied she "no longer wanted to be with the defendant,'' according to the brief.
The victim then exited the apartment to check something in her backyard, and Toscano grabbed a kitchen knife from a table and proceeded to follow her, the brief alleged.
In an interview with detectives later, Toscano allegedly described what was in his mind, saying, "If I can't have her, then I don't want anyone else to have her,'' according to the brief.
"The defendant stated that ... his jealousy was overwhelming,'' the document stated.
Oropeza's daughters and their grandmother were together in a room, watching television, when the victim began shrieking, according to the brief. The eldest child, not identified in court papers, told detectives that she witnessed Toscano plunging the kitchen knife into her mother and yelled at him and threw rocks in an attempt to divert him from the deadly assault, but it was to no avail.
The children and their grandmother then fled the apartment.
A neighbor called 911, and police officers arrived minutes later, discovering Oropeza "motionless, eyes glazed over, copious amounts of blood on the ground'' around her, the brief said. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Toscano was nowhere in sight.
The next morning he went to the Palm Springs Police Station and surrendered, allegedly admitting his culpability, telling an investigator in Spanish, "I made a big mistake. I came to face the consequences,'' according to the brief.
Toscano has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
