A California woman who once claimed she acted in self-defense has been convicted of killing her ex-boyfriend and burying his body in what prosecutors called a “makeshift tomb” in her backyard.

She Wrapped Her Victim In An Air Mattress, Hiding Body For Nearly A Decade

Trista Ann Spicer, 46, was found guilty Monday in San Bernardino County Superior Court of second-degree murder for the 2014 death of Eric Mercado, 42. Jurors also found that she used a deadly weapon — a frying pan — in the killing, which prosecutors described as brutal and calculated. Mercado had been missing for nearly eight years when his remains were discovered on Spicer’s property in 2022, wrapped in the remnants of an air mattress and hidden inside a concealed storage space. Police say the compartment measured about eight feet wide and six feet high, the size of a small shed. The grim discovery ended a mystery that had haunted Mercado’s family for almost a decade.

Spicer Told Her New Boyfriend About The Crime

The investigation into his disappearance was reignited when Spicer’s then-boyfriend, Waylan Gentry, came forward to police. He told detectives that Spicer had confided in him about a body buried under her home’s concrete steps. When she learned her family planned to sell the property, she allegedly moved Mercado’s remains and asked Gentry to help her “get rid of” her ex. “I didn’t know what she meant,” Gentry later testified. “She said he was buried under the stairs. I did not believe her.”

The Police Found A “Tomb” On Spicer’s Property

After consulting with his mother, Gentry reported what he knew. When officers executed a search warrant, they found the air-mattress “tomb” — and a body that forensic tests soon identified as Mercado’s. The medical examiner testified that the injuries to Mercado’s face were catastrophic, saying his nose and eye socket had been “obliterated” and that he would have died within seconds. Spicer told jurors that she met Mercado in 2014 and that their relationship quickly spiraled into drug use and violence. According to her testimony, Mercado convinced her to start using meth again after six years of sobriety, and soon after, she said, he became controlling and abusive.

After Killing Mercado She Said He Left Town

Spicer claimed that one night in October 2014, Mercado grew enraged over dinner and threw it at her. She said he often forced her to be unclothed at home, so she sat on the couch without any clothing while he allegedly stabbed her in the neck. When he ordered her to make him coffee, she said she went to the kitchen, grabbed a frying pan, and hit him in the head. Then she slit his throat. After killing Mercado, Spicer reportedly wrapped his body in an air mattress, sealed it beneath the house, and carried on with her life. For years, she told friends and family that Mercado had simply left town.

She Could Go To Prison For Life

It wasn’t until 2022, when she began planning a move to Illinois, that the secret came undone. Gentry testified that Spicer mentioned she “had something to take care of” before she could leave California — and that “something” turned out to be Mercado’s body. Spicer now faces 16 years to life in prison when she is sentenced in January 2026.