Long Beach man sentenced to prison for killing young stepdaughter

 A Long Beach man who slashed his 9-year-old stepdaughter’s neck in what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up months of sexual abuse was sentenced September 11 to 41 years to life in state prison, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Jacinto Trujillo, 37, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and oral copulation with a child under 10 years old. He was ordered to register as a lifetime sex offender.

On the evening of April 27, 2012, Trujillo was walking with the girl in Long Beach when he pulled out a razor blade and cut her neck, prosecutors said. He left her, bleeding, in a nearby church parking lot.

The following morning, a witness found the girl's body in the parking lot of the Los Altos United Methodist Church, prosecutors said. A short distance away, officials said, Trujillo was bleeding from self-inflicted stab wounds.

At the time, prosecutors said Trujillo killed the girl, whom he had raised since she was an infant, out of fear she would reveal that he had been molesting her.

During the investigation, prosecutors said, Trujillo admitted to sexually abusing the girl multiple times and killing her.

Contact the Homicide Report. Follow @latimeshomicide on Twitter.