A 31-year-old Hispanic faces capital murder and molestation charges after he stabbed his nine-year-old stepdaughter to death to cover up months of sexual abuse

Jacinto Zuniga Trujillo, from Long Beach, Los Angeles, stabbed the girl as he feared she would reveal that he had been sexually abusing her since November 2011. The body of the girl - identified in court papers as Xiomara Fernandez - was found in the parking lot of Los Altos United Methodist Church. She was in a pool of blood and had been stabbed several times on her upper body. Trujillo's body was found close by with a number of self-inflicted stab wounds. It is believed that he tried to commit suicide. He was taken to hospital for treatment but survived and was immediately taken into custody on suspicion of murder. Though he was not Xiomara's biological father, Trujillo had raised her since she was a few months old and was the only father she ever knew. Her mother, Graciela Fernandez, has five other children, aged eighteen months to 21. Trujillo, who is unemployed, is the biological father of the two youngest children. Trujillo has been charged with five counts of oral copulation and sexual penetration with a child under the age of ten involving the victim. The District Attorney's Office filed a special circumstances murder charge - as the girl was killed because she was a witness to a crime - which would allow it to seek the death penalty in the case.