Jury convicts teen killer

A Costa Mesa man deliberately beat his high school peer to death in 2001 then dragged her body more than 25 feet to conceal her from help, a jury found Monday.

After 90 minutes of deliberation, a jury of six men and six women convicted Victor Manuel Garcia, 25, of first-degree murder. He faces 25 years to life in prison at his Sept. 18 sentencing.

Garcia was 17 when he and his friends met Ceceline Godsoe, 16, for the first time at Fairview Park in the late hours of Sept. 20, 2001. Garcia and his friends were there celebrating the birth of Garcia’s first daughter.

Godsoe was at the park with her friend Evan Christiansen. The two had opted to hang out and drink alone and had just left a party.

When the two groups met in the undeveloped, poorly lit park, they immediately hit it off by all accounts. Garcia and Godsoe even went to the same high school. Eventually, Godsoe and Garcia walked off together. It was the last time anyone would see the nature-loving, 120-pound teenage girl alive.

Only Garcia knows what happened next. But the jury determined Monday that no matter what triggered it, Garcia purposely punched and kicked Godsoe’s head and neck until she died. A coroner determined she drowned in her own blood.

Jurors declined to comment on the case after the verdict.

“I just feel very sad, it’s two young lives wasted,” said William Godsoe, Ceceline’s father. He came upon his daughter’s bloodied and bruised body covered with insects early the next morning before police had arrived. He was led there by Christiansen, who found her first and had to break the news to her dad.

“I’m still missing my daughter,” he said after the verdict.

Garcia’s defense attorney, deputy alternate defender Frank Davis, argued that Godsoe died from complications of the broken jaw his client had given her.

Did he mean to hurt her? Yes. But did he mean to kill her? No, Davis argued. He told the jury Garcia was guilty of manslaughter at worst.

The jury found unanimously that he did intend to kill her.

“The grief process was difficult ... the time’s been a benefit,” said Ceceline’s mother, Martha. “I feel compassion for his family. They’re victims of this also. They had to sit there and listen to it. I loved my daughter very much.”

Garcia, a native of Mexico who will be up for possible deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement if he’s ever released from prison, was extradited from Mexico City in 2004.

He had been arrested there on accusations he beat his wife, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy said. Murphy said Garcia has a history of violence when he drinks.

Among her wounds, Godsoe suffered a broken jaw, a hematoma to the rear of her head and a bite mark to her arm. She had deep, blood-red marks to most of her face and a part of her neck, which a second coroner determined swelled up enough to contribute to her asphyxiation.

Garcia dragged her body down one of the park’s dirt paths and left her in the grass face up where she was eventually found.