A 55-year-old man was convicted Thursday of fatally stabbing his girlfriend in a Garden Grove motel nearly three years ago. Kennedy Anthony Audain was convicted of first-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a knife. Audain, who is scheduled to be sentenced Sept.
13, faces 26 years to life in prison. Jurors deliberated for about three hours before convicting Audain of killing 50-year-old Leticia Mahe of Santa Ana on July 14, 2021. Audain killed the victim just before 5:45 a.
m. Wednesday in a Motel 6 at 12091 Trask Ave., according to a trial brief from Senior Deputy District Attorney Harris Siddiq.
Mahe dialed 911, saying the defendant was holding her captive at knifepoint, Siddiq said. An officer dispatched to the motel saw the defendant through a window pacing in the room, “yelling and screaming,” Siddiq said. The defendant then throw clothes from a hamper on the bed before he spotted flames and heard the smoke alarm go off, the prosecutor said.
When officers knocked on the door, there was no response, but they got in with a master key a short time later and arrested Audain, whose clothes were stained with blood, Siddiq said. Mahe sustained multiple stab wounds to her abdomen, upper torso, neck, head, back and arms, Siddiq said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
A couple in a neighboring room heard the two arguing about 5 a.m. with one saying, “I love you” multiple times before the woman cried, Siddiq said.
Another neighbor heard a �.
