Tape Gives Two Sides of Defendant

After an hour of calmly lying about his mother during an interview with homicide detectives, Jason Victor Bautista’s composed demeanor broke as soon as they left the room.

“Get away from home, stay away from home,” he frantically yelled at his younger brother in a cellphone call that authorities taped on a hidden recorder. “Dude, dude, do it.”

The January 2003 interview and subsequent phone call, recorded 10 days after prosecutors say Bautista strangled and dismembered his mother, were played at his murder trial Wednesday in a Santa Ana courtroom.

His brother, Matthew Montejo, then 15, was also charged with murder but will probably face reduced charges for his cooperation in the case. He is scheduled to testify today against his brother. Police say he has told them that Bautista chopped off his mother’s head and hands because he had seen killers do the same thing on “The Sopranos.”

In the interview tape, then-20-year-old Bautista sounds eager to help -- but also seems unconcerned about the whereabouts of his mother, Jane Bautista.

“I study a lot, and I’m not that worried about what my mom’s doing,” he tells detectives during an interview at Cal State San Bernardino, where he had been studying chemistry.

He tells them his mother was probably in Corona with a man she had met on the Internet.

What prosecutors say actually happened, though, is that Bautista was fed up with his apparently mentally ill mother interfering in his life and decided to kill her after months of planning. He strangled her in their Moreno Valley apartment Jan. 14, 2003, said Orange County Deputy Dist Atty. Michael Murray, then cut off her head and hands to complicate any investigation.

Jane Bautista’s torso was found a day later, thrown 90 feet down a ravine off Ortega Highway in Orange County.

But in the Jan. 24 interview, Jason Bautista tells police that the family had dined together at Hometown Buffet on Jan. 16 and that he had talked to her on the phone three days later. He tells them he loves his mother.

“My mom’s great. She’s there when I need her,” he says, adding later, “I don’t care what other people say. My mom’s important to me.”

As the detectives probe further, though, telling him they will get search warrants for the family cars and apartment, Bautista sounds increasingly unnerved.

“You seriously aren’t joking, are you?” he says. “It’s that serious?”

“Jason,” a detective replies, “we know more about what’s going on than you think we know.”

The interview ends soon afterward, with Bautista still claiming his mother is in Corona.

Also on Wednesday, Bautista’s former co-workers from the Holiday Inn in Ontario, where was employed as a desk clerk, said he had mentioned in the weeks before the slaying that his mother was going to move to Chicago and that their relationship had soured.

“He just said he was not getting along with his mother,” said Priscilla Ramos, the front desk manager at the time.

Bautista’s lawyer has said that his client didn’t mean to kill his mother but was lashing out after years of physical and emotional abuse stemming from her schizophrenia. The attorney has said Bautista will testify.