Man accused of murder faces trial

A Costa Mesa man accused of bludgeoning a teenage girl to death in 2001 is scheduled to stand trial later this month.

Victor Manuel Garcia, 25, is charged with murdering 16-year-old Ceceline Godsoe at Fairview Park on Sept. 21, 2001.

Garcia was 17 at the time, and prosecutors are charging him as an adult. Authorities said Godsoe met Garcia at the park, where he beat her to death with a blunt instrument.

Prosecutors said he knocked her down, kicked and killed her, then went home, bathed in alcohol and burned his clothes to destroy the evidence. When word got out that police were investigating the death and his involvement with the crime, police said Garcia fled to Mexico. Witnesses had reported Godsoe was last seen with him.

After years of searching, Garcia was arrested in Mexico City on a domestic violence charge there in 2006. Thanks to an FBI warrant listed with Mexican officials regarding Godsoe’s death, officials alerted U.S. authorities they had Garcia.

Garcia was the first man extradited from Mexico to face prosecution in the U.S. on charges of committing a murder as a juvenile.

His trial is scheduled to begin June 29 in Santa Ana’s Central Justice Center.

— Joseph Serna