Jul 17, 2008 7:13 pm US/Pacific
O.C. Teen Found Guilty Of Murdering Mother
SANTA ANA, Calif.
A jury Thursday convicted an Orange County teen for the 2006 first-degree murder of her mother.
Barbara Mullinex, then 56, was stabbed more than four dozen times, dumped in Newport Harbor and found with a knife still protruding from her eye.
Rachael Mullenix, now 19, faces 25 years to life in prison.
A sentencing date has not been set.
Rachael Mullinex's one-time boyfriend, Ian Allen, is now 23 and waiting for his own trial to commence.
Mullinex contended that Allen committed the murder and forced her to run away with him. She said Allen was mad at her mother because she threatened to have him arrested. But the jury found Rachael complicit in the crime.
Prosecutors maintained that Rachael planned the murder along with her boyfriend because her mother forbade her to see Allen.
After Barbara Mullinex's body was found, Rachael was arrested two days later with her boyfriend in Lafayette, La. They were on their way to Florida, police said.
Testifying in her own defense during the trial, Mullenix admitted she helped Allen clean the crime scene and dump the body in the harbor -- but only because she was in shock and was afraid of Allen, the Orange County Register reported.
While insisting that she was kidnapped by Allen and taken out of state, Mullenix admitted under cross-examination that she did not call police, even though there were several times that she could have tried to get help, the paper reported.
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