Stab victim found in Calabasas
Man confesses to killing his girlfriend
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

A woman was found stabbed to death in a car at a Calabasas gas station on the morning of May 11 after her boyfriend called and confessed to murdering her during an argument in Ventura.

Police said Oxnard resident Uriel Cruz, a 23yearold Hispanic male, was arrested at the Exxon station on Calabasas Road.

Cruz apparently killed his girlfriend, 25-year-old Ventura resident Barbarita Luna, after she told him she wanted to end their relationship. He stabbed her several times while in a car at a Target parking lot on 4200 Main St. in Ventura, according to Sgt. Jack Richards of the Ventura Police Department.

Authorities responded at 7:43 a.m. to a call regarding an altercation, but when they arrived several minutes later the car was gone, Richards said.

Luna reportedly died at the store parking lot. Cruz took off with her body. Police said evidence of the crime was found at the scene.

"I don't know if he had it planned or what," Richards said. "He drove for about an hour and a half, in a daze I'd guess. I'm not sure who he called who convinced him to stop, but he turned himself in."

Cruz pulled into the gas station at the 24000 block of Calabasas Road and called police to confess. When deputies from the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station arrived at the station across from The Commons they found Cruz, the car and Luna's body inside.

The L.A. Sheriff's Department transported Cruz to the Ventura Police Department later that evening. He was charged with murder, and bail was set at $500,000. He was arraigned Tuesday.

Luna's body is at the Los Angeles Coroner's Office awaiting an autopsy.

The stabbing was the first homicide of the year for the Ventura Police Department.

In May 1996- at the same store location as the Cruz incident- a woman named Sherri Dally was kidnapped and later stabbed to death by her husband's lover, Diana Haun.

Haun and Dally's husband are serving life sentences for the murder.