Hollister
– A jury convicted a Santa Clara man Tuesday for the
first-degree murder of former Hollister resident Dolores
”
Dee
”
Gonzales, whose body authorities found dismembered in 2005.
Hollister – A jury convicted a Santa Clara man Tuesday for the first-degree murder of former Hollister resident Dolores “Dee” Gonzales, whose body authorities found dismembered in 2005.
Alexandre Hochstraser, Gonzales’ then-boyfriend, was found guilty of first-degree murder Tuesday evening. The 48-year-old will be back for sentencing in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Sept. 13 and faces 25 years to life in state prison.
For Gonzales’ family, the conviction ends a two-year limbo and provides some closure. Hochstraser beat Gonzales to death with a heavy metal object while she slept in the morning hours of June 5, 2005, and then dismembered her. His defense attorney argued that the killing was not premeditated.
Gonzales’ 44-year-old sister, Beatrice Gonzales-Ramirez, said the family was ecstatic after hearing the verdict.
“All you could hear was, ‘Thank God,'” Gonzales-Ramirez said when reached on her cell phone Tuesday.
Deputy District Attorney Ted Kajani, who led the prosecution, argued during his closing statement Monday that Hochstraser thought out Gonzales’ murder.
“The jury spoke loud and clear that the murder was a crime against humanity and against Dee Gonzales, a loving mother,” Kajani said.
The prosecutor showed the jury explicit photographs during his closing statement Monday of five bins containing her dismembered body parts and deep gashes in Gonzales’ head that resulted in her death.
Hochstraser hit Gonzales four times in the head with a metal object, in the process gouging the wall above the head of the couple’s bed where she had been asleep, Kajani said during his closing statement.
During the closing statements, defense attorney Kenneth W. Robinson argued that Gonzales hit Hochstraser before he killed her. Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Gonzales was born in Hollister in 1961, the fourth of 10 children. She was a 1979 graduate of San Benito High School and once worked for the San Benito County Free Library. Gonzales went to work at Mission College in Santa Clara in 1982, where she worked for more than 20 years.
Some of her family members still reside in Hollister. She is survived by eight siblings, her mother and father, and two children.
She was laid to rest on what would have been her 44th birthday.
Gonzales-Ramirez said the family plans to get together soon in remembrance of their sister.
“Now we can breathe,” Gonzales-Ramirez said.
