Quick Take
Samuel Stone, 21, will face a murder charge in the February death of Zainab Mansoor. “If he walks away, still, I lost my daughter," Mansoor's father, Mansoor Naseem, said after a preliminary hearing Tuesday. "If he gets a full sentence, I still lost my daughter. She meant everything to me."
A Santa Cruz Superior Court judge ruled that 21-year-old Samuel Stone will be held to answer to a murder charge after his preliminary hearing Tuesday, citing “strong suspicion of guilt.”
On Feb. 23, Santa Cruz Police Department officers responded to a call made by Stone himself, with Stone confessing that he had murdered his girlfriend at Seabright State Beach. Officers attempted lifesaving measures on 21-year-old UC Santa Cruz student Zainab Mansoor of San Ramon until firefighters and paramedics arrived. Mansoor was transported to Dominican Hospital, where she died.
Officers arrested Stone, then 20, and charged him with homicide. Stone was in court Tuesday with his attorney, Tawnya Hughes. Assistant District Attorney Yukiko Orii is the prosecutor on the case.
Orii called three witnesses during the preliminary hearing. Those were SCPD officers Jeffrey Brouillette and Tori Zimmerman, who were two of the first officers on the scene, as well as the lead detective on the case, Dave Rosell.
Brouillette testified that he was first on the scene in February, and initially began asking anyone left on the beach if they had seen Stone and Mansoor. Meanwhile, Zimmerman and another SCPD officer were doing the same thing in a different location.
When Brouillette approached the other two officers, they had already ordered Stone, a former UCSC student, to lie on his stomach on the ground. He said that Mansoor was motionless and did not appear to be breathing.
Zimmerman said that when she arrived at the scene of the crime, Mansoor was face up and motionless, while Stone sat next to her with his hands up and holding his cellphone. Zimmerman said he was cooperative and that a search did not reveal any weapons.
Once Stone was in custody, Zimmerman said she could hear him speaking aloud through the door of his holding cell. She said that he said things like, “I’m sorry, baby,” “I take full responsibility,” and, “You didn’t deserve this, I do.”
Rosell attended Mansoor’s autopsy and spoke again with county coroner Dr. Stephany Fiore before the preliminary hearing. He said Fiore determined that Mansoor’s injuries were consistent with “neck compression,” and that Fiore suspected strangulation by chokehold.
Orii played the audio of Stone’s 911 call, in which he admits to strangling his girlfriend. The recording continued until the point that responding officers approached him.
Following the testimonies, Judge Denine Guy found that there is “a strong suspicion of guilt” and that Stone will have to answer to the murder charge.
Zainab Mansoor’s father, Mansoor Naseem, attended the hearing. He said being in court was “brutal,” but that he feels all responding officers and judicial officials have done everything right and are moving as quickly as possible. However, he added that no matter what happens, there will always be a profound emptiness in his life.
“If he walks away, still, I lost my daughter. If he gets a full sentence, I still lost my daughter,” he told Lookout. “She meant everything to me — every single second I had with her was amazing.”
Naseem said that he has trouble putting that pain into words, but it pervades almost every aspect of his life. He can’t look at beaches or the ocean anymore. He said he probably won’t ever eat Japanese food again because he and his daughter were the only ones in the family who enjoyed it. He thinks of how much he wanted to travel with his daughter, as she had never been out of the country. He doesn’t know what their family will do for Thanksgiving, because she used to make their mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce from scratch.
“There are so many things that are just empty, and there is no time machine,” said Naseem, adding that he puts flowers at his daughter’s grave every Friday. “I apologize to her, saying, ‘I’m sorry I could not come and protect you’ – if she was going through a rough patch with this guy maybe I would have given her better advice.”
But as difficult as it is for Naseem to attend the court dates, he will not stop: “As long as I live, I will be here. That’s what a father has to do.”
Stone is due back in court May 21 for arraignment on information and a request from Hughes to consider setting bail.
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