Beaumont Murder Suspect Pleads Not Guilty, Again

A woman charged with killing her Beaumont roommate earlier this year has pleaded not guilty in her latest arraignment, district attorney officials tell Banning-Beaumont Patch.

Vanessa Kathleen Fierro had an information arraignment in Riverside on Monday, the latest step as her case makes its way to trial, according  to Riverside County District Attorney Spokesman John Hall.

Fierro pleaded not guilty when she was first arrested.  Then, a judge ordered her to stand trial on all charges during an April 29 preliminary hearing after hearing some of the initial testimony in the case, according to Hall.

Pre-trial proceedings will continue on June 21 with a trial readiness conference.

As for the woman who was arrested in Simi Valley with Fierro nearly a week after the crime— Tanita Marie Baker— she pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory to murder, for helping Fierro avoid arrest and capture by police, according to Hall. 

Baker had initially entered a plea of not guilty on March 11, the same day Fierro also pleaded not guilty, according to court records and the district attorney's office.  

On April 30, she was sentenced to three years and four months for her new plea—  a plea that was not part of any deal with the district attorney's office, according to Hall.

"The sentence is for her to serve two years in county jail first, then the remaining 16 months under mandatory supervised probation," Hall added.

Fierro was charged on March 8 with murder, and Baker was charged with being an accessory to murder for allegedly helping Fierro escape town and police, according to a criminal complaint in the case.  

Both women are already convicted felons who served time in state prison, adding enhancements to the charges the women face.

A criminal complaint in the case alleges that Asselin was stabbed by her roommate Fierro, though an autopsy ruled the determining cause of death to be asphyxiation due to strangulation, a Beaumont police corporal testified in court, according to the Press Enterprise.