Professor charged over 1995 murder of the man who raped her at college after her ex-boyfriend 'stabbed him to death in revenge attack'

Norma Patricia Esparza, 39, has been taken into custody for the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez in 1995

She was offered a plea deal but rejected it, saying it would be 'a lie'



She says Ramirez raped her



Esparza's then ex-boyfriend Gianni Van and others murdered Ramirez in revenge

Ramirez was found on the side of an Orange County road hacked to death with a meat cleaver



Esparza says she was later pressured to marry Van so that she would not have to testify against him

Police reopened the case after the pair divorced and arrested Esparza when she returned to the U.S. for a conference



Esparza is a psychology professor in Geneva, Switzerland

A psychology professor has been taken into custody for the murder 18 years ago of her alleged rapist after rejecting a plea deal that would have handed her a three-year prison sentence.



Norma Patricia Esparza, 39, is one of four suspects to face charges for the 1995 killing of Gonzalo Ramirez, 24, whose body was found hacked to death with a meat cleaver on the side of a road in Orange County. A fourth suspect died in July.



Esparza, a professor at Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland, was arrested in the cold case murder late last year after re-entering the U.S. for an academic conference.



Accused: Norma Patricia Esparza listens during a news conference in Santa Ana, California, on Wednesday

Esparza, a wife and the mother of a four-year-old daughter, said at a news conference Wednesday that she could not accept the plea deal, as it would be 'a lie.'



'The principle of what they're asking me is to plead guilty to something that they know I am not responsible for,' she said.



She will now face trial for one felony count of special circumstance murder - a charge that can carry a life sentence without parole.



Prosecutors are calling the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez a 'revenge killing.'



They allege that on 15 April, 1995, a 20-year-old Esparza was at a bar with a gourp of friends, including former boyfriend Gianni Van, when she pointed out Ramirez, claiming he had raped her in her dorm room at Pomona College a few months earlier.



According to the prosecution, Esparza, Van, Kody Tran, Diane Tran and Shannon Gries followed Ramirez when he left the bar in the early hours of the following morning.



Accused: Ex-husband of Norma Patricia Esparza, Gianni Van (left), and Shannon Gries (right)



Involved: Diane Tran (left) has plead not guilty in the crime, and Kody Tran (right) would have been charged had he not shot himself in a standoff with police last year



They intentionally rear-ended his vehicle, say prosecutors, forcing him to get out of the car to inspect the damage.



He was then kidnapped. His body was found on the side of Sand Canyon Road in Santa Ana hours later.



Esparza says she was forced by the aggressive Van to identify Ramirez and then coerced to keep the secret of his murder for almost two decades.



Diane Tran, Shannon Gries and Gianni Van have also been charged. All have pleaded not guilty.



Kody Tran died after shooting himself in a standoff with police last year.



According to the Los Angeles Times, Esparza says she met Ramirez in a Santa Ana nightclub. The next morning he asked her to breakfast and offered to drive her and some friends back to Pomona College.



Wife and mother: Norma Patricia Esparza receives a hug from her four-year-old daughter, Arianna

Once in her dorm room, he raped Esparza, who went to a school nurse and was given the morning-after pill.



She was too ashamed to report the rape to authorities and the nurse did not advise her to do so.



'I don't think I was thinking at that time,' she said. 'I felt ashamed. I felt guilty. I didn't want to come forward because I didn't want my family to know.'



Julie Ann Rojas, who was Gries then-girlfriend, testified that she was with Van and Esparza the night Ramirez died.



She said Van, Gries and Kody Tran attacked Ramirez while she and Esparza went to a bar. After about an hour Roja and Esparza went to the transmission shop owned by Kody Tran where Esparza said she saw Ramirez tied and hanging from the ceiling.



Jailed: Norma Patricia Esparza, pictured with her husband, Jorge Mancillas, has been taken into custody

After Ramirez's death, Esparza began dating Van again and the two were married.



Esparza's current husband Jorge R. Mancillas told reporters that Esparza was pressured into marrying Van so that she would not be bound to testify against him.



Cold case: When investigators learned Esparza and Van were divorced, they re-opened the murder case of Gonzalo Ramirez

He said that his wife was told that Ramirez was 'roughed up' and was unaware of the murder until weeks later when she was questioned by police.



Esparza, who says she suffered years of sexual abuse by her father as a child, said at a news conference Wednesday that she lived in fear of Van for years after the attack.



'All I knew is that I wanted to survive,' she said.



'All I knew was that these people were dangerous and I just needed to stay quiet and withdraw and come out of that night alive.'



Senior deputy district attorney Scott Simmons said there is sufficient evidence 'to prove she is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.'



Mancillas and Esparza's four-year-old daughter Arianna were in the courtroom yesterday as she was handcuffed.



The family lives in a small town in France on the Swiss border and Esparza is an assistant professor of psychology and counseling at Webster University.

