A 46-year-old California woman may spend the rest of her life in prison for murdering her ex-boyfriend, hitting him in the skull with a frying pan and cutting his neck before burying his remains in a “makeshift tomb” in her backyard.
On Monday, a jury in San Bernardino County found Trista Ann Spicer guilty of one count of second-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for employing a deadly weapon in the death of 42-year-old Eric Mercado.
Spicer said she was acting in self-defense when she killed Mercado, who had been missing since 2014 and was discovered buried on Spicer’s property in 2022.
As Law&Crime previously reported, officers from the San Bernardino Police Department’s Homicide Unit conducted a “follow-up interview” with Spicer on the afternoon of August 23, 2022, after getting a tip regarding probable human remains stashed in her yard. After verifying the tipster’s information, officers obtained a search warrant for a property in the 1400 block of E. Davidson Street.
The tipster was eventually revealed as Spicer’s boyfriend from 2022, Waylan Gentry, who claimed she had relocated Mercado’s body from its original location behind some concrete stairs after learning that her family intended to sell the house. Gentry earlier testified that Spicer was discussing going from California to Illinois, where she had family, but that she needed to take care of one last thing before leaving, and requested Gentry for assistance.
Gentry claimed that the goal was to assist Spicer in “getting rid of” her lover, as reported by the San Bernardino Sun.
“I didn’t know what she meant,” Gentry stated. “She claimed he was buried underneath the stairs. “I didn’t believe her.”
Gentry reportedly stated that he chose to contact the police after chatting with his mother, who advised him to “do the right thing.” When authorities examined the house, they discovered a hidden storage room that was approximately 8 feet wide, 6 feet high, and 3 feet deep.
Mercado’s body was apparently discovered in the compartment, wrapped in a sliced air mattress. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Mercado informed police that his nose and eye socket seemed to be “obliterated” and would have killed him “within seconds.”
“During the execution of the search warrant, authorities discovered what seemed to be a makeshift tomb on the premises. Investigators entered the makeshift tomb and discovered human bones,” police stated in a news statement. “Homicide investigators discovered important information, including the fact that Trista Spicer and the decedent, Eric Mercado, shared a house. Investigators discovered that Mercado was reported missing by his family in 2014 and has not been seen since.
Spicer said during the trial that she met Mercado in 2014 and that he quickly persuaded her to resume using methamphetamine after six years of abstinence, according to the East Bay Times.
She alleged that physical and emotional abuse began soon after. However, she claimed Mercado was prone to violent outbursts and she was afraid to report the abuse.
She claimed that in October 2014, Mercado became unhappy with the food she had made and tossed it at her. She was sitting naked on the couch because he had told her to. She claimed that Mercado stabbed her in the neck before instructing her to bring him coffee in the kitchen. While there, she claimed to have grabbed a frying pan and struck Mercado in the head, hitting it with both hands before slitting his throat.
Spicer is set to appear in court for her sentencing hearing on January 20, 2026. She faces 16 years to life in a state jail prison.
