Worried mom finds daughter dead in bathroom, California cops say. Ex-boyfriend charged

A 37-year-old is facing prison time after being convicted of beating and strangling his ex-girlfriend in 2023, California officials said.

Aaron Stevan Romo of Anaheim was awaiting a domestic violence trial where he was accused of beating his ex-girlfriend, Mirelle Mateus, 24, in 2022, according to a May 29 news release by the Orange County district attorney’s office.

“She came to illuminate our lives,” Mateus’ mom told ABC 7. “Ever since she was born, that light in her eyes, the angel that God gifted to me in that moment, changed our lives forever.”

Four months later, Romo called Mateus to pick him up from a bar in Orange after he was injured in a fight, prosecutors said.

Mateus, who had a restraining order against Romo, picked him up and they went back to the apartment they previously shared, officials said.

The following day, Mateus’ mom was worried when her daughter hadn’t returned home and wasn’t answering her calls, prosecutors said.

Mateus’ mom went to Romo’s apartment to find the door open and her daughter dead in the bathroom, officials said.

Mateus, described by loved ones in a GoFundMe page as a “special caring generous person with a heart so pure and full of love,” had been beaten and strangled, officials said.

“A mother’s last memory of her daughter should not be finding her lifeless body on the floor where she spent the last moments of her life struggling to get away from the man who had repeatedly abused her,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. “He is a master manipulator who repeatedly lured his victim back in only to ruthlessly beat and strangle her until she took her last breath.”

Romo was later arrested at his current girlfriend’s Riverside home, officials said.

Romo is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole, officials said.

He is set to reappear in court in June for his sentencing, officials said.

Orange County is about a 40-mile drive southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

This story was originally published May 31, 2024 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Worried mom finds daughter dead in bathroom, California cops say. Ex-boyfriend charged."