A judge ordered a Daly City woman to stand trial Thursday for the murder of her ex-husband, whom she allegedly doused with scalding water in a jealous rage over another woman.

Jesusa Tatad peeled back the sheets covering her sleeping ex-husband, Ronnie Tatad, and tossed a pot of boiling water on him and then clubbed him with a baseball bat in their tiny, shared apartment, according to testimony in her preliminary hearing.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Clifford Cretan said a jury should decide if she’s guilty of the six felony charges, which include murder, mayhem and torture.

Ronnie Tatad, 36, died about two weeks after the Nov. 26, 2011 attack from a bacterial blood infection brought on by burns that covered up to 55 percent of his body, testified Daly City police detective Gregg Oglesby.

Despite divorcing in December 2007, prosecutors said Jesusa Tatad still lived with her ex-husband in a 600 square foot studio apartment and became furious over his suspected relationship with another woman. Defense attorney John May, however, argued a slew of inconsistencies challenged Deputy District Attorney Morris Maya’s account of the slaying.

An apartment complex maintenance man was one of the first witnesses to spot the scalded, half-naked, hysterical man dart across the 200 block of Coronado Avenue on the morning of the attack. The maintenance worker then found Tatad cowering behind a car, in soaking wet briefs and a T-shirt. The skin on his hands was so burnt it was “flaking off” and falling to the ground, said Oglesby.

Tatad was screaming for help, but became even more frantic when he spotted a woman walking across the road toward him. The woman was Jesusa Tatad, Oglesby said. ‘Stay away from me. Go away,’ the man reportedly shouted at her.

Daly City police Officer Ira Perez, the first officer to arrive, said Ronnie Tatad told him his ex-wife had scalded him with boiling water. When confronted with her ex-husband’s accusation, she said ‘yes, officer,’ Perez told the judge.

But when Perez went to handcuff the scorned ex-wife, Ronnie Tatad didn’t want her arrested, according to testimony. The ex-husband also told witnesses, before being rushed to the hospital, his ‘fiancé is really jealous and is after his ex-wife.’

“It becomes a whodunit,” said May. “That quote makes no sense.”

Investigators were never able to clarify what he meant because by the time police came to interview him he was sedated and had a breathing tube stuck in his throat. Tatad died at San Francisco General Hospital December 9, police said.

May tried unsuccessfully to convince Cretan the mayhem and torture charges were a stretch. He said there was no proof his client was seeking revenge or was motivated by a sadistic impulse, as the law requires for conviction. He also noted there was no evidence, apart from a baseball bat left strewn on the floor and an accusation from her ex-husband, that Jesusa Tatad had hit him.

“It takes time to heat the water,” said Cretan. “Dumping a large pan of water on somebody that’s boiling is going to do some disabling and disfiguring.”

Tatad is being held without bail and is due back in San Mateo County Superior Court July 31.

Contact Joshua Melvin at 650-348-4335. Follow him at Twitter.com/melvinreport.