There was no question in Dept. 17 this morning of who killed Monica Anderson.
Instead, attorneys in the Sacramento Superior courtroom debated in their opening statements whether Lan Anh Le stabbed her 26-year-old lover in a premeditated, calculated attack on March 13, 2010 or in a fit of passion.
Deputy District Attorney Anthony Ortiz warned jurors that they would see gruesome evidence during the trial, but argued that the case is a "straightforward" murder case.
Le, now 22, stabbed her girlfriend 91 times, proof of "the viciousness of the attack," Ortiz said.
"When you see the evidence, you'll come to no different conclusion - this was a murder," Ortiz said.
Le's public defender, Sandra Di Giulio, argued instead that her client acted that morning in the heat of passion, fueled by vodka, cocaine, jealousy and rage.
"She did something while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine and emotion that she is never ever going to be able to take back," Di Giulio told the jury.
After reviewing the evidence, she said, "you're going to understand why this was a crime of passion, a crime that can only happen when a person like Lan has such intense feelings for somebody else."
Twenty years old at the time, Le fatally stabbed Anderson after a night of partying that ended with a fight between the two women in the victim's Citrus Heights apartment. The women were fighting over a cell phone charger.
Read the full story in Wednesday's Sacramento Bee.
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