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 Norma Patricia Esparza, 40, who grew up in Southern California,
pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and is expected to be
sentenced to six years in prison, the Orange County District
Attorney's Office said in a statement.
She was originally charged with murder in the killing of 24-year-old
Gonzalo Ramirez. Two men, her former boyfriend, Gianni Van, 45, and
his alleged accomplice Shannon Ray Gries, 43, remain charged with
murder in the case.
In 1995, Esparza told Van that Ramirez had raped her, and after
Esparza pointed out Ramirez at a bar in Santa Ana, California, Van
and others kidnapped and killed him, said Esparza's attorney, Jack
Earley.
Prosecutors say Esparza will testify against Van and Gries at their
trial next year. Authorities say a third man took part in the
kidnapping and killing and owned an auto repair shop where Ramirez
is believed to have been tied up and slain, but he has since died.
Esparza, who after leaving California became a professor at Webster
University in Geneva and lived in southern France with her husband
and young child, was arrested in 2012 on a trip to Boston, gaining
international attention for a cold case that prosecutors say was
built on the discovery of new evidence.
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The break in the case came in 2010, when detectives obtained a DNA
match linking one suspected killer to Ramirez, according to City
News Service.
Esparza, who was a 20-year-old student at the time of Ramirez's
death, was discouraged from reporting to police the rape that she
contends she suffered, Earley said.
She remains in jail, and will be sentenced after she testifies in
the trial of Van and Gries.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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