Barstow jurors hear two possible slaying scenarios

"The husband is the one who had the motive," said Deputy District Attorney John Thomas. "All the evidence points to the husband rather than the boyfriend."

Gina Perez's family tells a tale of a relationship that started when she became pregnant at age 16 with her first of four children. The couple married soon after, but it was a marriage marred by physical abuse, officials and family members said.

A deputy testified last week that he responded to the Perez home months before the slaying because Gustavo Perez had attacked his wife's car with a tire iron after learning she was seeing another man.

Defense attorney Barry Bernstein on Tuesday was clearly pointing the finger of blame at Angel Campuzano, whom Gina Perez met at work and whom she left her husband for several times.

Campuzano said on the stand that he saw Gina Perez the morning she was killed when he drove to a bus stop three blocks from her home, where she was putting her children on a school bus.

He then accompanied Gina Perez and her 2-year-old son home, where he told her he loved her and asked her to marry him. Campuzano said he also pleaded with her to move into his mountain cabin with her children.

While they were talking, Gustavo Perez called the house.

"The little baby started choking and I grabbed a glass of water to hand it to him, and he said my name," Campuzano testified.

Seconds later, Gina Perez hung up the phone and asked Campuzano to leave.

He would never see her again, authorities said.

Bernstein, however, led a line of questioning that painted Campuzano as a man who, tired of Gina Perez "ping-ponging" between himself and her husband, killed her.

He sternly questioned Campuzano on a few items he recanted in Tuesday's testimony: whether he walked or drove to the Perez home, what Gina Perez was wearing the day of her death and whether he was still dating her after she returned to her husband.

The difference in answers from the 1992 interview with sheriff's deputies and responses on the stand Tuesday varied because of the lapse in time and because a small language barrier prevented Campuzano from fully understanding the questions, Thomas said.

"She was a good mother and the reason she went back to (Gustavo Perez) was so she could be with the babies," said Gina Perez's sister, Sushanna Khamis.

The courtroom was packed Tuesday with members of Gustavo Perez's family, two of whom were scribbling notes in spiral notebooks. A small enclave of Gina Perez's family huddled together.

Testimony will resume today.