Ventura County – When love turns sour with the wrong person, it can do more than simply leave a bitter taste in your mouth; it can seriously endanger your life. Such was the apparent case on the evening of Saturday, March 25th, when the occupants of a vehicle traveling northbound on Highway 33—not a particularly heavily-trafficked thoroughfare at that time of day—spotted a female at the edge of the roadway.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Ian Laughlin, “the passersby were concerned that she was ‘possibly injured’, and quickly turned around to check on her welfare, because they thought a car had hit the female.” By the time they dialed 911 Emergency, they had learned that the woman had not been injured by any vehicle, but that she had been stabbed.
VCSD deputies from the Ojai Valley substation responded with all due alacrity, accompanied by a unit of the Ventura County Fire Department and an ambulance operated by American Medical Response. The victim was promptly taken by ambulance to Ventura County Medical Center suffering from “serious stab wounds to her face, neck, and body.”
It didn’t take investigators long to learn from the victim that she had been assaulted and stabbed by her ex-boyfriend, Edward Quintero Becerra, a 26-year old Oxnard resident, and that he had fled the scene with their two-year-old child. The VCSD Gang Unit, the Sheriff’s Major Crimes Detectives, and Ojai Patrol deputies immediately issued an Amber Alert and went on the hunt for the child and Becerra himself.
Within the hour, Becerra was located at his home with the child, who was unharmed. Becerra was taken into custody and arrested on charges of attempted murder, for which he was booked into Ventura County Jail with his bail set at $1,000,000.
Photo: courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
