Relatives of Preston described Wallace as controlling and violent, saying he had threatened to kill Preston on several occasions. Jurors were also tasked with sifting through recollections of the night Preston died and the following Christmas morning. “There are no facts in this case that show Mr. “Both of them were drunk, and the injuries that ultimately caused her death were not caused by Mr. Wallace’s attorney, Heather Moorhead, said Preston’s death was “heartbreaking,” but not Wallace’s fault. “And on Christmas, he made good on those threats.”
“He had been threatening to kill her for three years,” Brown said. Nine years after the violent relationship between William Wallace, now 39, and 26-year-old Za’Zell Preston ended with her death, an Orange County Superior Court jury found Wallace guilty of second-degree murder.ĭuring the trial, Senior Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown described Preston’s death as the culmination of a history of domestic violence carried out by Wallace, and noted he failed to call 911 despite his injured wife bleeding from a head injury. An Anaheim man who propped his wife’s body up on a sofa for her children to open Christmas presents in 2011 was convicted Wednesday, April 7, of murder.
