Severed leg trial ends with 2nd-degree murder verdict
By Jeff Kearns
Robert Tyler, a San Jose man whose girlfriend's leg was discovered in a Los Gatos dumpster two years ago, was convicted of her murder in Superior Court on July 8.
Except for a 14-inch section of her leg, the body of Imelda May Pascua, 27, was never found, but Tyler said he was the last person to see her alive, and his fingerprints were found on a bag wrapped around the leg, police said.
Tyler, 37, also had a history of physically abusing and making threats against Pascua, also of San Jose. Friends said in court documents that Tyler had hit and kicked Pascua while she was pregnant and that he became obsessively jealous when he suspected she was having an affair with a co-worker.
Tyler testified that he and Pascua had argued when he last saw her alive, and that she was gone the next day, having left their baby boy with Tyler. Tyler initially denied he was the baby's father, and requested a paternity test. Before she disappeared, police reports said, Pascua gave a friend an answering machine tape on which Tyler threatened to kill her.
Tyler, who entered a not-guilty plea, was convicted of second-degree murder, and will be sentenced on Aug. 9. He faces 15 years to life in prison. The prosecuting attorney was Deputy District Attorney Joyce Ferris-Metcalf.
The section of leg turned up in a dumpster behind a high-tech company on Knowles Drive when a man looking in the trash for aluminum cans discovered what looked like a part of a human body and called police. The dumpster was behind a building where Tyler had once worked.
Los Gatos/Monte Sereno Police also found other personal items in the dumpster that were later linked to Pascua. Months later, a DNA sample from the leg confirmed that the leg was indeed Pascua's.
Police and other agencies searched the area extensively and sent divers into the nearby Camden Percolation Ponds, but no other physical evidence was ever found. A cause of death was also not determined.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
