Bodies, deadly DUI, theater scare: Top public safety stories of 2015

High-profile court cases, deadly crimes and new faces atop local police departments helped make for an eventful year of public safety news in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Irvine.

Here are the Daily Pilot’s top crime and courts stories from 2015, listed in reverse chronological order:

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Escort found dead in Newport Beach office building

Sarai Alcaraz, a 23-year-old escort from Long Beach, was found dead in a Newport Beach office complex December 29. The next day, investigators arrested 29-year-old Isaac Neito Hernandez in connection with her death.

Authorities have not yet released details about Alcaraz’s cause of death.

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Costa Mesa’s GPS case

The case of two private investigators accused of spying on a group of Costa Mesa City Council members moved closer to trial.

A judge ruled in December that there was enough evidence to hold PIs Chris Lanzillo and Scott Impola on felony charges that included conspiring to track council member Steve Mensinger with a GPS device and falsely imprisoning council member Jim Righeimer by calling in a fake DUI report.

During a hearing on the case in August, a former president of the Costa Mesa Police Officers Assn. testified that the association asked the law firm that employed Lanzillo and Impola to dig up dirt on City Council candidates they opposed.

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Wozniak convicted

More than five years after his arrest, Costa Mesa community theater actor Daniel Wozniak was convicted in December of murdering Orange Coast College students Juri “Julie” Kibuishi and Sam Herr.

Prosecutors said that after the May 2010 slayings, Wozniak staged a gruesome cover-up attempt by dismembering and hiding Herr’s corpse and posing Kibuishi’s body to look as if Herr had sexually assaulted her and fled.

Despite a confession from Wozniak, the trial was repeatedly delayed while public defender Scott Sanders used the case to delve into a brewing jailhouse-informant scandal involving the Orange County district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department. Sanders’ efforts in Wozniak’s case and others prompted UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and several other respected legal minds to call for a federal investigation.

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Women gain high police ranks

The Irvine and Costa Mesa police departments promoted women to higher ranks than ever before.

Costa Mesa named its first female lieutenant by promoting Joyce LaPointe in September.

Irvine named its first female deputy chief by promoting Julia Engen in December.

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Turnover in top police posts

Police departments in Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa saw changes in leadership.

In July, Costa Mesa swore in new Chief Rob Sharpnack. Irvine Chief Dave Maggard announced his retirement, making way for new Chief Mike Hamel to take the job in November. And Newport Beach Chief Jay Johnson announced in November his plan to retire.

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Body-dumping case closes

The mystery of a woman’s body found under a Newport Harbor bridge in 2013 came to a close.

Garden Grove gang member Irvin Tellez was convicted and sentenced in November to 102 years in prison for three shootings, including one that killed Nancy Hammour, the mother of two young boys.

Another gang member, Jaime Rocha, was sentenced in October to 16 years behind bars for his part in the slaying. Rocha made a deal with prosecutors and testified against Tellez, whom prosecutors presented as the man who pulled the trigger.

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Conviction in deadly DUI case

A self-described drug counselor from Huntington Beach was convicted in October of murder for driving while high on heroin in Newport Beach and killing a bicyclist.

Friends and relatives of the victim, 30-year-old Shaun Eagleson of Fountain Valley, attended each day of Neil Stephany’s trial. Witnesses described Stephany careening across the road near Crystal Cove and even nodding off at the wheel before he slammed into Eagleson. Stephany, who was charged with murder because of a previous DUI conviction, is awaiting sentencing.

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Sunday school molester

A Costa Mesa pool cleaner who volunteered with children at churches was convicted in July of molesting young boys and sentenced in September to 60 years to life in prison. Prosecutors said Christopher McKenzie used his position as a child-care volunteer at Rock Harbor church in Costa Mesa and Christ Church by the Sea in Newport Beach to groom victims for sexual abuse.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue handed down the sentence that essentially would put McKenzie, 51, behind bars for the rest of his life. McKenzie has appealed the conviction.

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Leaf blower scare at theater

Panic broke out at the Edwards Big Newport 6 movie theater in Newport Beach in August when someone burst into a nighttime screening of “The Gift” and revved a leaf blower. Moviegoers, who thought the blower was a chainsaw or gun, stampeded out of the theater, injuring some audience members.

Colin Hunter Davis, an 18-year-old Newport Beach resident, was eventually charged with three misdemeanors based on accusations that he participated in the prank. Davis and three minors turned themselves in after police began searching for them as persons of interest, according to authorities. It’s unclear whether the minors have been accused of a crime.

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Love triangle suspected in Irvine killing

Authorities said a love triangle in Irvine ended with a dentist stabbed to death outside his office in July.

Prosecutors have charged 38-year-old Irvine engineer Hongli Sun with murder based on accusations that he rammed into Xuan Liu, 54, with his SUV and then killed him with a knife. Authorities said Sun believed his wife and Liu were having an affair.

Sun has pleaded not guilty.

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Death of woman missing for 2 months ruled an overdose

The death of a woman who disappeared after a Valentine’s Day night out in Costa Mesa was ruled an overdose in July, but how her body ended up on an isolated embankment in the Cleveland National Forest remained a mystery.

“The indications are that she died somewhere else and then the body was dumped out there,” Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock said.

Toxicology tests showed that Erica Alonso, 28, of Laguna Hills died from a lethal combination of alcohol and the drug GHB, which is known for use at dance clubs and raves and as a date-rape drug, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Investigators have said that Alonso drove away from the Irvine home of her on-and-off boyfriend early Feb. 15 after the two had visited Sutra Lounge in Costa Mesa, where they met another couple who accompanied them to the house. The couple told investigators they left the house at about 3:45 a.m. when Alonso and her boyfriend began to argue. Alonso may have left 10 to 15 minutes later, authorities said.

Investigators found Alonso’s car March 25 in Aliso Viejo. Her decomposing body was discovered April 27 by a group of biologists in a remote area off Ortega Highway near San Juan Capistrano. The body showed no obvious signs of physical trauma, authorities said.

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Local crime climbs

After years of declines across California, crime in Newport Beach, Irvine and Costa Mesa started to rise. Through the first half of 2015, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach saw bumps in their crime rates compared with the same period in 2014.

The sharpest increase came in Costa Mesa, with a 40% spike. Irvine also saw a significant uptick, with total crime up 26%. Newport Beach had a 12% increase.

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Murder charges in hit-and-run

Prosecutors charged a Costa Mesa man with two counts of murder in an Irvine hit-and-run crash that killed a 2-year-old girl and her grandmother in June.

The suspect, Alec Scott Abraham, made further headlines when, according to court documents, he told police that he would “only get five years” behind bars for the deadly crash.

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Workers charged in birds’ deaths

Residents on the Balboa Peninsula were furious in May when a demolition project knocked over a tree, killing five baby birds among the dozen or so that were nesting there.

Since then, construction workers Stephen John Esser, 47, of Dana Point and David Roger Stanley, 40, of Downey have pleaded not guilty to charges of animal cruelty, unlawful possession and destruction of bird nests/eggs, unlawful taking of migratory nongame birds and harassing a bird or mammal.

Residents, who said they pleaded with the men to stop toppling the tree, managed to save most of the nestlings, according to prosecutors. The birds were cared for at the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach and later released.

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From luxury to lockup

The case of a man who prosecutors claim built a lavish lifestyle on the sex trade continued to work its way through court.

As reported by the Daily Pilot in April, a team led by Newport Beach vice detectives arrested Ronald Spurlock, also known as “Ro Dinero,” after a lengthy covert investigation and an undercover sting.

Spurlock is awaiting trial on human-trafficking charges that prosecutors say involved intimidating, beating and coercing women to do his will.