BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Seated at a table in her east Bakersfield home, a woman heard a gunshot and looked outside.
From her vantage point, she saw an arm extended from the doorway of an apartment across the street, a pistol in its hand. Soon after, authorities arrived and found Cesar Antillon Munoz, 50, fatally wounded outside the apartment, and Elidia Solis Mejia, 45 dead inside.
No one else was in the apartment.
The neighbor was unable to see who held the gun, an investigator said, but other law enforcement officers testified the evidence points to Javier Andrade-Mejia.
At the conclusion of Andrade-Mejia’s preliminary hearing on Wednesday afternoon, Judge Brian M. McNamara found there was sufficient evidence to order him to stand trial on two counts of first-degree murder. Andrade-Mejia faces life in prison if convicted.
The 37-year-old Andrade-Mejia, who shares a child with Solis Mejia’s daughter, had weeks earlier filed a report with the sheriff’s office alleging Munoz had molested the child, giving him a motive, according to court documents and testimony.