A California woman will spend the next 15 years behind bars for the 2014 killing of her boyfriend, a case that remained a mystery for nearly a decade until his remains were discovered buried in a makeshift tomb beneath a backyard staircase.
On Friday, March 27, 46-year-old Trista Ann Spicer received her sentence following a November 2025 conviction for the second-degree murder of 42-year-old Eric Mercado.
The sentencing marks the conclusion of a timeline that began in October 2014, when Mercado’s family first reported him missing. At the time, Spicer told authorities and family members that Mercado had simply walked away from their home after an argument and never came back.
The truth only began to surface in 2022 when Spicer’s ex-boyfriend, Waylan Gentry, went to the police. According to court testimony reported by The San Bernardino Sun, Spicer told Gentry she “needed to take care of something” before moving to Illinois and asked for his help to “get rid of” Mercado.
“She said he was buried under the stairs,” Gentry testified. “I did not believe her.”
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Gentry eventually alerted the San Bernardino Police Department, leading homicide detectives to search Spicer’s property on August 23, 2022. There, they uncovered human remains inside what they described in a press release as a “makeshift tomb.”
During the trial, Spicer admitted to killing Mercado but argued she acted in self-defense. She testified that Mercado became enraged over a dinner she had prepared, prompting her to strike him multiple times with a cast-iron skillet and stab him in the neck with a kitchen knife.
However, Gentry provided a different account in court, testifying that Spicer told him she attacked Mercado with a frying pan while he was sleeping before using a box cutter.
While Spicer maintained that Mercado was abusive, the jury ultimately rejected her self-defense claims.
Before the discovery of his body, Mercado’s family spent years searching for him, creating Facebook pages and distributing missing person posters in hopes of a return that never happened. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return requests for comment regarding the sentencing.
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