Married for 22 years, stabbed 30 times

A 50-year-old Mexican national admitted stabbing his wife to death and expects to get 20 years in a California state prison at his sentencing next month.

The admission on the felony plea deal form reads: “Killed my wife, Ariflor Zurita, with malice aforethought and used a knife.”

The statement was signed on April 3, 2015, by Pedro Rosalino Zurita and a court interpreter, prosecutor Susan Gust, defense attorney Doug Miller, and judge K. Michael Kirkman.

The deceased woman, Ariflor Gonzalez de Zurita, 37, was found by Carlsbad police on April 13, 2014. Her body was in the parking lot of a business where the woman had worked with her husband. Police stated the business was in the 5700 block of Van Allen Way in Carlsbad.

Prosecutor Gust said that the victim suffered more than 30 stab wounds, and parts of the attack were captured on surveillance video.

Gonzalez de Zurita had reportedly separated from her husband four months earlier, after a 22-year-long marriage and four children. Ariflor was about 15 years old and Pedro about 27 when they married. Prosecutor Gust stated that the woman had expressed fear of her estranged husband.

Pedro Rosalino Zurita, then 49, was arrested within an hour of the incident and has been held in lieu of $5 million bail.

In the plea deal, Zurita also admitted “spousal battery” (from a separate incident) that resulted in a traumatic condition on his wife.

Sentencing is set for May 12 in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse.