About 11:20 p.m. Monday, Jose Gonzalez-Esparza called police to report his girlfriend lying unconscious on the floor of their Mesa trailer home. A little while later, police say, Gonzalez-Esparza admitted to beating her to death with a baseball bat.
Emergency responders found Maria Gomez, 45, dead in the living room of the trailer, near Main Street and Loop 202. She had been hit repeatedly in the face and forehead.
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Investigators learned that earlier in the day, Gomez had called her daughter, saying she wished to leave Gonzalez-Esparza, 34, and planned to do so in a few days. The daughter then received another call, this time from Gonzalez-Esparza, saying he found her mother dead in the trailer.
At Maricopa County Sheriff's Office homicide headquarters, authorities read Gonzalez-Esparza his rights, and he later admitted to beating Gomez, according to records.
Gonzalez-Esparza told deputies about 9 p.m. Monday that he and Gomez argued and that he hit Gomez four times with a closed fist in the face. As she tried to escape, crawling on the floor toward the kitchen, he says, he hit her eight times in the face and forehead with a baseball bat .
Detectives later found dried blood on Gonzalez-Esparza's feet and his bloody clothes at the crime scene, according to the report.
Gonzalez-Esparza will be charged with second-degree murder, police say, and was being held without bond.
