Carlos Trevino established a set of rules for himself when he was in the presence of a friend, Eric Israel Mercado, who he once saw shoot a man in the kneecap and then rob him.

One of those rules: Don’t spend more than 15 minutes with Mercado.

“It didn’t take much to piss him off,” Trevino testified on Thursday, Oct. 23, at the San Bernardino Justice Center in the murder trial of Trista Ann Spicer. She is accused of killing Mercado, who was her boyfriend when he vanished in 2014

Three friends of Mercado — all who told defense attorney Gary W. Smith that they reluctantly took the witness stand — testified they believed Mercado was a violent person. The statements perhaps set the stage for Spicer to claim self-defense or that she was the victim of abuse on Monday, when she is scheduled to

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