A 46-year-old woman from California faces a potential life sentence after being convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend. She allegedly attacked him with a frying pan, then slit his throat before concealing his body in a makeshift grave in her backyard.

On Monday, a San Bernardino County jury found Trista Ann Spicer guilty of second-degree murder, with an additional charge for employing a deadly weapon in the death of 42-year-old Eric Mercado.

Spicer claimed the act was in self-defense. Mercado had been missing since 2014, and his remains were only unearthed on Spicer’s property in 2022.

According to previous reports from Law&Crime, detectives from the San Bernardino Police Department’s Homicide Unit interviewed Spicer on August 23, 2022, following a tip-off regarding possible human remains in her yard. After verifying the details, they secured a search warrant for a property located in the 1400 block of E. Davidson Street.

The tip came from Waylan Gentry, who was Spicer’s boyfriend in 2022. Gentry testified that Spicer had moved Mercado’s body from under some concrete steps, fearing discovery as her family planned to sell the house. He also mentioned that Spicer was contemplating a move from California to Illinois, where her family lived, but needed to resolve this issue first and sought his assistance.

The task, according to Gentry, was to help Spicer “get rid of” her boyfriend, the San Bernardino Sun reported.

“I didn’t know what she meant,” Gentry said. “She said he was buried under the stairs. I did not believe her.”

Gentry reportedly said he decided to go to the police after speaking with his mother, who told him to “do the right thing.” When police searched the home, they found a hidden storage compartment that was about 8 feet wide, 6 feet high, and 3 feet deep.

Mercado’s body was reportedly found in the compartment wrapped inside a sliced air mattress. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Mercado told police that his nose and eye socket appeared to have been “obliterated” and would have left him dead “within seconds.”

“During the service of the search warrant, investigators observed what appeared to be a makeshift tomb on the property. Investigators entered the makeshift tomb and located human remains inside,” police wrote in a news release. “Homicide investigators identified pertinent information and learned that Trista Spicer and the decedent, Eric Mercado, lived at the residence together. Investigators learned that Mercado had been reported missing by his family in 2014 and had not been seen since.”

During the trial, Spicer testified that she met Mercado in 2014, claiming that he soon convinced her to start using methamphetamine again after six years of being clean, the East Bay Times reported.

The physical and emotional abuse began shortly afterward, she claimed. However, she said Mercado was prone to fits of violence and she was afraid to report the abuse.

She reportedly said that in October 2014, Mercado became upset over the dinner she prepared and threw it at her. At the time, she was sitting naked on the couch because he had ordered her to do so. She reportedly said Mercado stabbed her in the neck before ordering her to get him coffee in the kitchen. While there, she said she grabbed a frying pan and used it to strike Mercado in the head, swinging the cooking utensil with both hands before cutting his throat.

Spicer is currently scheduled to appear in court for her sentencing hearing on Jan. 20, 2026. She is facing 16 years to life in a state correctional facility.