FRENCH VALLEY - A man who was 17 when he and a friend allegedly stabbed his 13-year-old girlfriend to death in 1996, then hid for years in Mexico, was ordered to stand trial for first-degree murder.

Crispin Solorio Garcia, now 30, remained at large for about 10 years following the death of Sophia Briseno, a student at Thompson Middle School in

Murrieta. Francisco Ochoa, who is also suspected in the murder, remains a fugitive.

The Murrieta girl was last seen alive on Feb. 12, 1996. Following a frantic search by her family, the girl was found dead six days later by a man and his teenage daughter who were walking their dog in a field east of the Laurel Cemetery on Ivy Street.

During a hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to order

a trial for Garcia, Murrieta police Lt. Michael Baray testified that Briseno was stabbed 63 times with two screwdrivers. She had 33 wounds to the head, eight to the neck and 22 to the torso -- mostly to her back, he said.

Baray said he was told by the county coroner that the girl would have died "within minutes" of being stabbed because the puncture wounds caused her to bleed both internally and externally.

Murrieta police Detective Victor Carrillo testified that he interviewed Garcia when he was extradited from Mexico last August. Carrillo said the defendant admitted killing the girl, saying he planned the attack with Ochoa because she had been talking about him and he didn't like it.

"He was quite specific on the actual reasoning for the murder," Carrillo testified.

According to testimony by another witness, Garcia and the victim had been dating for a time, but he was in the process of breaking up with her. Carrillo testified that Garcia said the plot to attack Briseno was first discussed about three days before her murder.

On the night of the killing, Garcia said he, Ochoa and the girl got

together in a field near the cemetery on Ivy Street -- a hangout for youths --

to smoke marijuana and take crystal methamphetamine, Carrillo testified. Sometime during the evening, they walked away from the girl and, with a

series of gestures, allegedly decided to make their move.

According to the detective, Garcia said he took two screwdrivers out of

a truck bed and handed Ochoa one of them.

Garcia told the detective that he stabbed Sophia ൒ or 15 times" and

"could hear her screaming and gasping," Carrillo testified. He said the

defendant told him that she then fell and stopped screaming, so he knew she was dead.

Carrillo also testified that Garcia told him Ochoa started stabbing first, and that he wanted to back out of the plan to kill the girl "but felt it was too late."

Victor Coro testified that he was a friend and neighbor of Garcia's in 1996. He said that after the murder, he was taken to the field by Garcia to see the body and, ostensibly, to help Garcia find the screwdriver which he had broken during the attack.

"As soon as I seen the body, I ran," said Coro, adding that he went back to the mobile home park where he and Garcia lived, but they never spoke again.

"At that time, I just wanted to part ways with him," Coro testified.

The last time he saw Garcia before today was when the defendant was

packing his car to leave town soon after the murder, the witness testified.

Garcia was located in 2007 in a Morelia jailhouse in the Mexican state

of Michoacan, where he was being held on an attempted robbery charge under the name of Ismael Gomez Solorio, according to the FBI.

The preliminary hearing Thursday lasted about 2½ hours. If convicted of murder – as well as a special enhancement for allegedly using a screwdriver to kill Briseno – Garcia could be sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison.

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