A court will now determine if a man accused of killing his wife, dismembering her body in a vacant Pasadena restaurant then setting fire to a suitcase with more of her remains inside in a Los Angeles parking lot is mentally competent to stand trial.
The defense attorney for Valentino Gutierrez raised a doubt of mental competence over the objection of the prosecution, said Pamela J. Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
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That move by Gutierrez’s lawyer occurred Thursday, July 17, during Valentino’s most-recent court appearance in Pasadena Superior Court, a court official said.
The criminal case against the now-64-year-old was suspended.
Under the law, to be mentally incompetent means a defendant can’t cooperate with his or her attorney in the defense, or the defendant doesn’t understand the nature of the proceedings due to mental illness, a developmental disability or both.
Gutierrez is scheduled to next appear in court on July 31 for a mental-competency hearing in the Hollywood courthouse.
Gutierrez is accused of murdering, on Feb. 1, 2018, Tiana Alfred. His 31-year-old wife died of strangulation, the medical examiner’s office determined.
The couple had been staying at the Union Station Adult Center in Pasadena, police said, adding that Alfred was killed at the vacant Dona Rosa Bakery and Taqueria at 577 S. Arroyo Parkway in town.
Anahit Sinanian, who works as an assistant manager for the Social Security Administration, testified during last year’s preliminary hearing that she had contact with Alfred and Gutierrez twice in January 2018 at the Social Security office in Pasadena. Alfred wanted to make herself the payee for her disability payments. Her mom had been getting the money.
Sinanian described Gutierrez as loud, disruptive and wanted to know about Alfred’s benefits, according to court documents, and to become Alfred’s payee. The assistant manager quoted him as saying, “It shouldn’t be anybody else.”
Shortly before 2 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2018, a call about a rubbish fire at the Home Depot parking lot at 2055 N. Figueroa St. led to the discovery of a charred suitcase with a torso, arms and legs. The parking lot is near the Los Angeles River where the 110 and 5 freeways meet.
Detectives got videos from the store, train stations and inside a train.
Video shows a man with a bicycle, a suitcase and a backpack entered the Fillmore station of the A Line in Pasadena, then known as the Gold Line, at 12:43 a.m. that day. A man with a bicycle and suitcase got off at the Cypress station platform in Los Angeles at 12:56 a.m.
The parking lot video shows the suitcase on fire then someone on a bicycle riding toward the Cypress station at 1:35 a.m.
The train station video shows a man returning with a bicycle but without the suitcase at 1:41 a.m.
Police say that man on the train for all of those segments was Gutierrez.
He was arrested the next day at the shelter, identified himself to a detective as the man in a video still from the train, court documents said.
Gutierrez also told the detective that after leaving a hospital in Alhambra on Jan. 30, 2018, Alfred rode off, apparently on a bicycle, and that was the last time he saw her, according to court documents. He said he reported her missing to Pasadena police and that the suitcase he had with him on the train contained clothes he was going to donate to homeless people living by the L.A. River at the 5 and 110 freeways.
On Feb. 14, 2018, an employee of a cleaning team hired by the broker of the Dona Rosa restaurant came across two trash bags with a foul odor in an upstairs room, inspected them, and saw a head.
In addition to Alfred’s head, the bags also contained a pelvis, eight fingertips and a chunk of skin with a tattoo, according to court records.
Gutierrez was being held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles in lieu of $2 million bail.