California Man Sat His Dead Wife on Sofa as Their Kids Opened Their Christmas Gifts

An Anaheim, California man who killed his wife then sat her body on a sofa, told their children she was drunk and had them open Christmas presents in front of her body, a prosecutor told jurors at his murder trial.

“This Christmas story does not have a happy ending, and unfortunately this is not just a story, it is real life,” Heather Brown, senior deputy district attorney in Orange County, said Monday as trial began for William Wallace.

26-year-old Za’Zell Preston was taking college classes in hopes of becoming a domestic violence counselor when she was killed in 2011 by a man who already had served jail time for beating her.

The transcript is now public, and some of the mysteries that have surrounded Za’Zell’s murder were answered.

The couple had spent Christmas Eve partying at the home of one of their neighbors in their Anaheim apartment complex, Wallace’s former cellmate, Thurman Williams, testified.

Williams, who is now out of jail and said he contacted police of his own volition, said Wallace told him he and Za’Zell argued over having left Za’Zell’s three children alone. They went back to their own apartment and continued arguing.

Williams testified that Wallace told him he then hit Za’Zell – “creamed her” is how Williams says Wallace described it. Then Za’Zell allegedly tried to block Wallace from leaving the room, and he “pushed her.”

From Williams’ testimony: “She fell forward and he started to walk away, but noticed that she wasn’t doing well. So he felt bad. And then he picked her up and said he carried her back up the stairs to the living room. At that point he said he let her go … and she fell into a little glass table that was in the living room.”

Wallace told a member of Preston’s family that “we were drinking and during the argument I tossed her around a bit,” the prosecutor said.

Brown said the next morning, Wallace dragged his wife’s body from the bedroom to the living room couch, placed sunglasses on her and told the children, “Mommy ruined Christmas, she got drunk and ruined Christmas.”

Preston was slumped over on the couch when paramedics arrived. She left a newborn son they shared and two daughters, who were then 3 and 8 years old. It’s unclear who called 911.

Wallace’s attorney argued that Preston died from injuries after she drunkenly tripped and fell into a glass table, shattering it.

Police discovered blood throughout the apartment, in addition to holes punched in walls and a door that was off its hinges.

Wallace was arrested and has remained in custody on $1 million bail for nine years as he awaited trial.

The county pathologist, Aruna Singhania, said Za’Zell died from brain hemorrhaging due to one or more of the six blunt-force blows to her head. Four areas of trauma were on her face, two were to the back of her head. All occurred “within the same time frame.”

Gundy asked Singhania whether the injuries appeared to be due to a fall “or application of blunt force trauma perhaps by another person?” The pathologist responded: “I would say blunt force trauma inflicted injury, not a fall injury. Because of the multiplicity of injury here.”

“Mr. Wallace is being accused of something that is not his fault,” Heather Moorhead told jurors. “You will hear about a relationship that was full of arguing and yelling, but also a lot of love.”

However, you can tell from here Facebook statuses that they had trouble in their relationship before Preston’s murder.

Also significant is that Gundy was asking for first-degree murder, which means he had to show premeditation. He has two theories here and he put on evidence to support each. One is that Wallace beat her to death as the culmination of anger that had been building for weeks. Gundy put on Za’Zell’s mother, Saidell Preston, who told the 16-member grand jury that she had been on the phone with her daughter one day as Wallace was beating her in public, about two blocks from their apartment.

“He chased her down after beating her up at the apartment. She was seven and three-quarters months pregnant, and she was laying on the sidewalk of Beach and Lincoln, and crying on the ground. And I was on the phone telling her to please get up and get somewhere safe … because he had got up on her and was kicking her on the ground. … I didn’t physically see it. I could only hear the licks being passed. And she was able to hide [in] the bathroom of the 7-Eleven on Lincoln and Beach. I called the police.”

Gundy also argued that on Christmas, Wallace premeditated by letting Za’Zell die after he beat her. “He knows that she is in extreme distress, and he knows that if he calls the police and gets medical attention for her, that eventually they are going to know, because she is going to tell them, that he beat her up,” Gundy told jurors. “And so … he concocts this story about her falling down drunk” and hitting the table.

39-year-old Wallace could face up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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