Jose Esquivel was startled when he heard the frantic knocking on his front door. Standing up, he walked to the door to see who it was.
When he did, his friend, Omaima Nelson, was standing there, crying. He was surprised to see her there, and even more so to see her in such a state. Concerned, he motioned her inside, asking her what was wrong.
Omaima’s words came out in a rush, and she began pacing and gesturing wildly.
Jose spoke to her gently, telling her to calm down. Softly, he placed a hand on her shoulder and led her to the living room.
After a few minutes, Omaima had calmed down enough to tell him what was wrong. Jose listened attentively, concerned for his friend.
But as she told him what had happened, Jose’s mood went from concern to terror. He almost couldn’t believe what Omaima was telling him.
Then she asked him to come out to her car for a moment. Still shocked by what he had heard, he nodded silently and followed her outside.
Omaima took him to a red Corvette Stingray and told him to look inside. Looking through the window, he saw a plastic garbage bag. Jose looked at her, and she gestured for him to open the bag.
The plastic rustled as he opened it. Inside were what looked like packages wrapped in newspaper. Some of them had dark stains on them.
As he was trying to figure out what they might be, Omaima told him, and made him an offer.
Jose stood upright and involuntarily took a step back from the car. He stared at Omaima, unbelieving.
Mentally shaking himself free from his shock, he told her no and walked quickly back inside. She asked him a few more times, but he just kept saying no.
Jose still couldn’t believe all of this. But he knew that what she told him was beyond him. Picking up the phone, he called the police and told them what Omaima had just told him.
He didn’t know it then, but his call had just set into motion an investigation into one of the most brutal and gruesome crimes in Los Angeles history.
—
Bill Nelson didn’t know what her name was, but he was going to find out.
Standing up, he took another sip of his drink and began to cross the room toward the dark-eyed woman. He was just shy of 56-years-old, and he almost couldn’t believe that this beautiful, obviously much younger woman was flirting with him from across the room.
When he’d stopped into the bar in Costa Mesa, California, that night, he certainly hadn’t planned on meeting anyone, especially someone like this.
But one thing that he’d learned during his time in the United States Marines Corp was to never to pass up an opportunity to talk to a gorgeous woman who was interested in you.
Bill began to talk to her, just small talk at first, and then deeper, more meaningful conversation as the night wore on.
Her name was Omaima Aree Stainbrook. She had been born and raised in Egypt, and then had come to Los Angeles a few years ago. She worked as a nanny and as a fashion model.
Looking at her, Bill could believe it. Omaima had dark hair, dark eyes, and fine features that made her stand out from the other women in the bar.
He told her that he was divorced and had five children. He worked as a private pilot for a company called Cannon Mortgage, Inc. He also did part-time work as a computer programmer.
The conversation in the bar that night turned into a whirlwind romance. But before they went too far, Bill told Omaima that he had just gotten out of prison a short time before.
For years, he had smuggled drugs and electronics into Mexico from an airport in Texas. He had gotten caught and had gone to prison for four years.
Omaima didn’t care. He was successful and attentive and everything else that she was looking for in a partner. After dating for only five weeks, the two were married in Arizona, despite the fact that Bill was technically still married to his first wife.
Although he had told Omaima that he was divorced, and his first wife had indeed filed for divorce while he was in prison, the proceedings had never been finalized. Regardless, Omaima Stainbrook became Omaima Nelson, and they spent their honeymoon in Laredo, Texas.
The newlyweds were quiet and mostly kept to themselves at their quiet home in Costa Mesa. Everything seemed to be going well, despite their 23-year age difference.
Then, over the Thanksgiving weekend, Bill Nelson disappeared. He didn’t go to work, and no one saw him at his usual hangouts. Someone became concerned and reported him as a missing person to the police.
On December 2, 1991, Omaima Nelson started to bang on the door of Jose Esquivel. When he brought her inside, she told him her story.
She told Jose that a few days ago, Bill Nelson had attacked her. It had been far from the first time.
Shortly after they had gotten married, Bill’s whole attitude had changed. He had become physically and sexually abusive and forced her to meet his demands.
That night, he had tied Omaima’s hands and ankles to the bed, then raped her at knifepoint.
During the assault, Omaima had managed to work one of her hands free. Grabbing a lamp, she swung it hard at William, breaking it over his head. He fell to the floor, unconscious. Untying herself, Omaima got off the bed.
She went into a frenzy. She was tired of being abused. Grabbing the knife, Omaima began slashing and stabbing her husband, and didn’t stop until he was dead.
When she was finished, she stood there for a moment, covered in blood, breathing hard. Slowly, it dawned on her what she had done, and she knew that she was going to go to jail for killing her husband.
Omaima told Jose that she didn’t want that to happen. She needed to hide the evidence, and that’s where she needed his help.
She explained that she had dismembered Bill’s body to make it easier to hide it, but she just couldn’t get rid of the entire thing herself. Omaima needed Jose to get rid of Bill’s head and dentures so that no one would be able to identify the body.
As he stood there, disbelieving, Omaima took Jose outside to Bill’s car, a Corvette Stingray, and showed him the bag in the front seat. As he looked inside, she explained that that the packages wrapped in newspaper was Bill’s dismembered body. He could help get rid of those, too.
That was when Jose went and called the police.
When they arrived, they looked inside the bag and found what looked like human organs. Omaima Nelson was immediately detained and taken in for questioning. Police also went to the Nelson home, and when they went inside it was like walking into a slaughterhouse.
Throughout the home were more trash bags and even suitcases filled with body parts. They had been wrapped with aluminum foil or newspaper. The bedroom mattress was covered in blood. His head was inside the refrigerator, along with other body parts that had been mixed in with Thanksgiving leftovers. Police found his hands inside of a fry cooker, apparently in an attempt to remove his fingerprints.
The body had been dismembered to the point that it took authorities a while to positively identify the remains as being Bill Nelson.
Omaima Nelson was arrested for the murder of her husband and sent to the Orange County Jail.
Investigators discovered that it was true that Omaima was an Egyptian immigrant who had been a successful nanny and model. However, her primary source of income came from older men who financed a lavish lifestyle for her.
Omaima knew that she was an attractive woman, and she also knew the effect that had on men. Especially wealthier older men who were lonely and flattered to have the full attention of a woman that looked like her.
These men were willing to spend large amounts of money on Omaima, even buying her cars and paying her rent. Bill Nelson seemed to be just the latest in a long line of men that she had manipulated out of their money.
They also discovered that Jose Esquivel also hadn’t been the only one Omaima had tried to pay to help her dispose of Bill’s remains.
Richard S. Gray, one of her ex-boyfriends, told police that she had come to his apartment the same day that she had gone to Jose. Gray said that she didn’t go into details, only saying that she had killed Bill because he had beaten and sexually assaulted her.
She explained how she had dismembered his body, and then offered Gray $75,000 to help her clean up the apartment and dispose of the body.
By the end of January 1992, another of Omaima’s former lovers, Robert Hanson, came to police and told them that she had tried to rob him at gunpoint.
He explained that he had allowed Omaima to tie his hands with a necktie for what he assumed would be a sex game. To his surprise, she pulled out a gun and demanded that he give her money. Hanson said that at first, he laughed, thinking that it was some kind of kinky role-play.
When she didn’t laugh and continued to demand money, Hanson started to get afraid. He said that he was able to free himself and take the gun from Omaima. Incredibly, he simply handed it back to her.
Omaima denied Hanson’s claims.
The trial began in December of 1992.
Omaima’s attorney, Thomas G. Moody, contended that Bill Nelson’s murder was self-defense. He claimed that Omaima had been sexually abused growing up in Egypt and had been in several abusive relationships since.
Moody explained that Omaima was suffering from Battered Women’s Syndrome, a form of posttraumatic stress disorder experienced by women who have suffered physical, sexual, or psychological abuse.
When she had been sexually assaulted at knifepoint by Bill Nelson on the night of the murder, something inside Omaima had snapped. Omaima’s Battered Woman’s Syndrome had been triggered, and she had killed him.
The prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Randolph Pawloski, contended that Omaima Nelson had deliberately and willfully murdered her husband.
She had done this with at least two former lovers before, Pawloski claimed, then held them at gunpoint and robbed them. For whatever reason, she had decided to murder Nelson and dispose of the evidence.
No emotion registered across her fine features as the proceedings commenced, not even when photos from the inside of the apartment were shown and details of the crime were given.
Moody’s defense centered around Omaima had been an abused woman her entire life.
It had started in her childhood in Egypt, where she had been sexually abused. When she came of age, she had been forced to undergo female circumcision. She had continued to have abusive relationships into adulthood.
Moody placed Omaima on the stand, where she told the crowded courtroom that, at first, Bill Nelson had seemed to be different. But after they were married, she claimed that all of that had changed.
Omaima testified that if she refused Nelson sexually, then he would become angry. She said that he told her that “I paid for you. I’m getting what I paid for.” He told her that he didn’t care if she wanted sex or not, he was going to do whatever he wanted to her.
He often turned violent and forced her into sexual acts. Omaima claimed that he often beat her and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Another time he handcuffed her and then sodomized her. Once, he wanted her to perform oral sex on him while they were driving. When she refused, he picked up her new kitten and threw it out the window.
When asked why she stayed with him, she said that he would always apologize for what he did. She did try to leave him once, but he beat her for the attempt. He also threatened to abandon her in the middle of the desert or report her to immigration authorities as a Mexican prostitute if she didn’t meet his sexual demands.
After the attack, Nelson testified that she castrated William out of revenge for everything that he had put her through. After that, she had dismembered his body.
Onaima cut off his hands and boiled them to get rid of his fingerprints. She also boiled his head, and then skinned the body. Parts of him were mixed in with Thanksgiving leftovers so that they wouldn’t stand out when she threw them away in the dumpster outside.
She said that the next 12 hours went by in a haze, as if she was in a trance. She said that she couldn’t remember a lot of it, and what she could now seemed like a bad dream.
Moody told the jury that Omaima was an abused woman. When she finally had the opportunity to strike back at her abuser, she took it.
The prosecution however, argued that Omaima had deliberately planned to murder her husband, then dismember the body and hide the evidence. When she was finished, she was going to steal his car, take Nelson’s credit cards and all the cash that she could find, and get away.
Pawloski argued that during an examination of the body, William’s legs, which had been severed just below the knees, were found to have ligature marks. This meant that he had been tied up and had struggled against his bonds shortly before his death.
It also meant that Nelson had been tied up, not Omaima, in a clear contradiction of her testimony.
Pawloski went on to produce photos of Omaima that had been taken by Nelson the night of the murder. In them, Omaima posed nude for her husband, smiling.
He argued that Omaima had seduced Nelson the night of the murder. She had tied him up, very likely with the promise of some kind of kinky sex game, much like she had with Robert Hanson.
Once he was tied up, she had stabbed, slashed, and bludgeoned him to death.
Some of the most damning testimony of the trail came from Dr. David J. Sheffner, a psychologist who had examined Omaima after her arrest.
He testified that Omaima had told him the same thing that she had had told police – she had killed her husband in self-defense.
Sheffner said that he really did believe that she was suffering from mental disorders, and that it was possible that the cause of those disorders may have their roots in abuse she experienced as a child, as contended by the defense.
He said that when she had murdered Nelson, Omaima was psychotic on a scale that he had never seen before.
After she had killed Nelson, she decided to hide her crime. Before she did, she dressed like she was going to perform some kind of sacred ritual. Slowly and carefully, Omaima had put on red high-heeled shoes and a red hat, and then had accentuated the outfit with bright red lipstick.
She spent the night skinning and chopping William Nelson apart. Some parts she wrapped in aluminum foil, others in newspaper. Some she stuffed into trash bags and suitcases, others she either fed down the garbage disposal or mixed in with the Thanksgiving leftovers.
Omaima carefully put Bill’s head, covered in stab wounds, into the refrigerator. She boiled the hands in oil to remove the fingerprints.
In a sensational confession, she had told Sheffner that, in the process of dismembering Nelson’s remains, she had deliberately removed some of his ribs. Then she carefully prepared them and cooked them and ate them.
She told the psychologist, “I did his ribs just like in a restaurant. It’s so sweet, it’s so delicious…. I like mine tender.”
The jury deliberated for six days before finding Omaima Nelson, now 26-years-old, guilty of second-degree murder.
She was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison and sent to serve her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California.
Omaima attempted to be awarded parole in 2006 and 2011 but was denied both times. During one of those attempts, she told her attorney, Terrance Scott, that she had dismembered Bill Nelson because she believed in Egyptian mythology, and she was afraid of him seeking revenge against her in the afterlife.
Omaima Nelson is next eligible for parole in 2026.
Sources
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National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Stella, Richardson, Nebraska; Roll: 5621; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 74-36
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Cohen, Marisa. Medically Reviewed by Jennifer Casarella, MD. What Is Battered Woman Syndrome? WebMD.com
William E. “Bill” Nelson. Findagrave.com