The trial begins in 2021. Killing on Christmas Eve

Saul Nava wore a black pinstripe suit on the first day of his murder trial and showed no visible emotion as a prosecutor accused him of torturing and ultimately killing his girlfriend Alisen Takacs on Christmas Eve three years ago.

In an opening statement on September 26, Assistant District Attorney David Russell told Judge Derek Malan and a jury of six men and six women that Nava brutally beat her to punish 24-year-old Takacs for responding to the news of a Ex-boyfriend responded with baseball bats and a hammer in their shared apartment in Thousand Oaks.

“Saul Nava is about domination and control,” Russell said in his opening statement. “He wouldn't stop until he saw the last spark of life disappear from her eyes.”

Nava's public defenders, Bartley Brown and Andria Kim, reserved their opening statements and will deliver them after prosecutors rest their case.

Nava, now 24, has pleaded guilty to murder, torture and aggravated assault charges in the Takacs case, as well as charges of kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, assault and possession of child pornography in connection with his former girlfriend, Die acorn decides to refer to herself only by her initials, KM

Nava and KM began dating in late 2017, when he was 17 and she was 14, Russell said.

While they were on a break, KM was dating someone else. When Nava found out, he accused her of cheating and forced her to move back into his apartment, Russell said, adding that Nava whipped his then-girlfriend with a belt as punishment.

According to prosecutors, Nava often locked her in his closet while he was at work all day; When KM escaped the closet, he found her in the park and attempted to run her over with his car, pointing a knife at her to force her into the vehicle.

Russell said Nava filmed herself having sex with KM when she was underage, but he did not.

When she became pregnant with Nava's child, he persuaded her to have an abortion, but not without punching her in the stomach, Russell said.

Nava began dating Takacs in August 2021, after which he became less abusive to KM and eventually kicked her out of her apartment, the prosecutor said. That's when Nava had KM sign a “soul contract” with her bloody fingerprint, agreeing that he owned her soul and that he would punish her if she criticized him in any way, Russell said.

Takacs

Dec. 12, 2021, was the last day friends or family members heard from Takacs, although they texted, called and tried to show up at the Lynn Villa apartment the couple shared on McCloud Avenue in Thousand Oaks, the said Prosecutor.

According to the lawyer, Takacs received messages from a former boyfriend that day and responded flirtatiously. To do this, Nava took her phone and locked it in his safe.

Nava has filmed several videos of Takacs' final moments, with the last video of her taken shortly after 11:30 p.m. on December 23, 2021.

In one video, Takacs, wearing only sweatpants, says to the defendant: “I'm scared, I'm so scared, I'm terribly scared.”

Referring to her messages with her ex, Nava asks her if what she did was worth it. She replies, “No, I'm going to get hurt all over my body,” and later, “I'm not going to do anything else because I don't want to feel like that anymore.”

At 1:15 a.m. on December 24, 2021, Nava called 911 to report that his girlfriend had died of a “crack to the head.” When the operator asked if he caused the injury, he replied that he did, Russell said.

Paramedics tried to revive Takacs, but she was already dead.

The medical examiner listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma and the manner of death as homicide.

The doctor noted patterned injuries all over Takacs' body that were days to weeks old, as well as a stab wound on her calf to the bone and a laceration on her head to the skull. In certain areas of her body, her fatty tissue had separated from the rest of her tissue and liquefied – something that usually only happens in serious car accidents, Russell said.

Takacs had the words “whore,” “liar,” “selfish,” “POS,” “bitch” and “WOT” tattooed on his chest, photo evidence shows. The prosecutor said WOT stands for “waste of time.”

While serving a search warrant at the couple's home, police officers found tattoo equipment and a printed list of the tattooed words, as well as a hammer and bat. Russell said Nava's fingerprints and DNA were on at least one of the bats.

“He exercised complete control – he destroyed her,” the deputy prosecutor told jurors. “The inescapable conclusion is that the defendant intended to kill Alisen Takacs.”

The trial, which began with KM's testimony, is expected to last about a month.