A West Odessa woman spent most of Wednesday morning trying to convince Ector County jurors her estranged husband not only choked her into unconsciousness in March 2020, but that he repeatedly beat her during the course of their marriage, often in front of their young children.
Fabian Quinonez Aguilar, 29, is currently on trial in the 244th Ector County District Court on the single charge of assault family violence/impeding breath or circulation. He’s accused of beating and choking Alexandra Aguilar on March 16, 2020, her 28th birthday.
On Friday morning, Alexandra Aguilar was called to the stand by prosecutor Henry Eckels.
The couple got married in 2013 less than a year after they met. She was 21 and he was 20. They had their first child, a daughter, in July 2014 and she subsequently gave birth to a son in November 2018 and another daughter in December 2019.
Alexandra Aguilar told jurors about numerous incidents in which her husband would falsely accuse her of infidelity and being a prostitute and then beat her, often targeting her head and parts of her body where the bruises wouldn’t show. She said she’d try to leave the home, but her husband would block the door and hide both the car keys and her phone.
“It was constant. I’d be beaten and bruised, recover and then get assaulted again,” she said. “I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I didn’t know how he was going to act.”
Once, her husband even pointed a gun at her head while in their vehicle, their children in the backseat.
It wasn’t until an incident in January 2019 that she called the police, she said.
“I still loved him and I hoped things would change,” she said.
In fact, he’d often apologize, tell her things would be different and be more affectionate. Sometimes though, it was against her will, Alexandra Aguilar testified.
When asked what she meant, she told Eckels she’d often have to “cuddle” with her husband even if she didn’t want to because she feared she’d be beaten if she refused.
There were a couple of times when she took the kids and fled to her parents’ home, but she always ended up returning because she wanted her children to grow up with their father and realized it would be difficult to provide for her children without his income. She also continued to believe he could change.
Alexandra Aguilar recalled being beaten on Christmas Day 2018 after finding another woman’s underwear in her home. It was also the first time her husband choked her, she said.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “It was painful. I couldn’t breathe.”
She woke up on the floor. When she asked for her phone so she could call her mother to pick her up, her husband refused, she said.
Less than a month later, her husband beat her when she woke him up to care for their children while she worked a temporary office job. For the first time ever, she called 911. She waited in the car with her children until deputies showed up to arrest him.
Despite an emergency protective order, her husband continued to contact her and they ended up reconciling.
“I was afraid to leave and I still hoped he’d change and be the person he was before, good to the kids and good to me,” Alexandra Aguilar said.
On March 16, 2020, Alexandra said her husband left the house for work that morning without speaking to her, let alone wishing her a happy birthday. He came home at lunch angry and found her changing their toddler son’s diaper. He repeatedly struck her while she was holding the boy and then he went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and kicked the shelves, upending things onto the floor and shattering glass jars, she said.
He left less than 20 minutes after he arrived and she spent the afternoon cleaning up his mess, she said.
Fabian got home around 6 p.m. and became angry because she didn’t have his dinner waiting for him.
“It was my birthday and I didn’t want to make dinner,” she said. “It was just a sad day and I didn’t really want to eat.”
Her husband accused her of “provoking him” and tried to grab their son from her, she said. Although she fought to keep the boy, she let him go because she feared he’d get hurt.
“I already knew what was going to happen. That’s why I didn’t want to let go of Milo,” she said.
Her husband began punching her and pushed her to the floor, she said. That’s when he began banging her head on the floor and punching her in the face and head. The mixed martial arts fan also squeezed one of her legs with both of his in an attempt to cut off her blood flow, she said.
“It took over a week for my head to stop hurting,” Alexandra Aguilar told Eckels.
She was eventually able to stand up and grab a kitchen knife, but Fabian took it from her and broke it, she said.
“I pointed it at him so he would leave me alone,” she said.
Her husband then pushed her to their bedroom, she said.
The next thing she remembers is waking up on the floor in a sitting position, her back against the foot board of their bed and feeling groggy.
Realizing her husband was in the bathroom, she grabbed her phone, told her daughter she’d be back and went outside to call for help.
Unable to reach her mom, she called an aunt in Fort Worth who called the Ector County Sheriff’s Office. She waited behind a neighbor’s trailer for help to arrive. She testified she saw her husband drive around the block looking for her.
Even if she’d had time to gather her kids together, she didn’t have any car keys and she knew her husband would chase them if they left on foot, Alexandra Aguilar said.
It wasn’t until deputies took pictures of her injuries that she realized she had marks on her face and neck that resembled those she had after the first time she’d been choked, she said.
“I had head pain. I had neck pain. My entire body hurt,” she said.
Her husband was arrested that night and another emergency protective order was put into place. Two months later the couple reconciled because her mother-in-law had died and she thought, once again, he might change.
She left him for good on Aug. 9, 2020, and cut off all communications with him on July 23, 2021, she said.
Eckels had Alexandra Aguilar read aloud a handful of emails her husband sent to her from the jail in the later part of 2020. In them, he apologizes for the harm he’s caused her, acknowledged it was all his fault, expresses his hope they can be friends and he can maintain his relationship with their children.
“I’m the ugly person who (expletive) everything up,” he wrote her. “I never meant for it to be like this.”
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Johanna Curry, Alexandra Aguilar admitted she raises her voice when she gets upset. However, she rejected Curry’s suggestion that it was “mean” of her to accuse her husband of infidelity or that it was unfair of her to get angry at her husband for not trusting her.
She had proof of her husband’s infidelity and she was faithful to him, she said.
When Curry pointed out their youngest child was born at the end of what Alexandra called a particularly bad year, she responded, “I had no intention of getting pregnant.”
Asked if she threatened her husband with the knife that day, Alexandra Aguilar insisted she was defending herself.
She did, however, acknowledge that she had postpartum depression in March 2020.
Alexandra Aguilar acknowledged she declined an ambulance trip to the hospital that night, but said that was only because she wanted a family member with her. She went to the hospital with a cousin.
She’s not yet filed for a divorce, but she has an attorney and is preparing to do so, she said.
Judge Lori Ruiz-Crutcher is presiding over the trial.
