LOS ANGELES, Feb 4 (AFP) - A 22-year-old man was Friday convicted of murdering his mother and cutting off her head and hands in a crime inspired by an episode of the hit US mafia television show "The Sopranos."
A jury in the California town of Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles, found Jason Bautista guilty of the first-degree murder of his mother in January 2003 after deliberating over his fate for two and a half days.
Bautista had told the court during his trial that he had chopped off the head and hands of his mother, 41-year-old Jane Bautista, before dumping her body in a bid to conceal her identity.
"If I couldn't call police, I had to get rid of the body," he told the court last week, admitting that he had killed her in an act of "accidental self-defence" after she allegedly lunged at him with a knife.
"I remembered a 'Sopranos' episode I had seen where they got rid of someone that way," said the young man, who has been convicted of strangling his mother and tossing her dismembered body into a ravine.
Missing body parts of Jane Bautista were found in the family's apartment, east of Los Angeles, leading to the arrest of her sons shortly after her body was discovered nine days after she died.
Bautista's teenage half-brother, Matthew Montejo, who was 15 at the time oft he murder, testified for the prosecution at the trial, telling jurors he had helped throw his mother's body into the ravine.
Prosecutors had argued that Jane Bautista's erratic behaviour cramped her elder son's lifestyle and he wanted to get rid of her.
Bautista's partially clothed body was found on January 15, 2003, after passers-by spotted what they initially thought was a mannequin.
02/05/2005 01:07 GMT - AFP