GARDEN GROVE — A 32-year-old man with an extensive criminal history of domestic violence was charged Monday with killing a woman in Garden Grove.
Rafael Arechiga was charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. He is accused of killing 37-year-old Gabriela M. Molina Cervantes of Garden Grove.
It was not clear if the two were married, but they were in relationship.
Arechiga was arrested following a traffic stop at about 12:40 a.m. Thursday at Brookhurst Street and Chapman Avenue, Garden Grove Police Department Sgt. Nick Jensen said.
Santa Ana police working a missing person case contacted Garden Grove officers at about 8 p.m. Wednesday to request a welfare check after the woman failed to show up for work, Jensen said.
Minutes later, Garden Grove police dispatchers received a call from the same apartment complex officers were preparing to check. A caller, who had been asked by the woman’s family to check on her, found her body in an apartment in the 10400 block of Lampson Avenue, according to Jensen.
The victim had a restraining order against Arechiga, Jensen said.
Arechiga has an extensive criminal history of domestic violence against the victim, according to court records. Despite that, in July, Molina Cervantes requested dismissal of the restraining order against him, according to court records.
“I would like to remove the restraining order, to give another opportunity to my husband,” she wrote. “I don’t want him being arrested no more. I’m tired of living in fear that he gets arrested. I love him and I just want peace in my life.”
Arechiga pleaded guilty on Sept. 26, 2024, to domestic battery causing injury with a prior conviction for violence, disobeying a domestic relations court order and petty theft, all misdemeanors, as well as a felony count of contempt of a domestic violence court order with a prior.
He admitted in court papers attacking his spouse “by punching her with my fist” and violating a prior protective order and taking her purse.
According to a probation violation request, the victim sustained “visible injuries including bruising contusion along her right temple and right cheek, a bruise forming on her right triceps, an abrasion on her right elbow, and a circular scrape along her hairline and temple” and required hospital care.
Arechiga’s mother had also filed a restraining order against her son due to threats, but it was later dropped when no one showed up in court for the follow-up hearing on the request, according to court records.
Arechiga was also named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in December alleging he had strangled a quadriplegic patient at MainPlace Post Acute, at 1835 W. La Veta Ave. in Orange, while working there in July 2024. The patient — Darryl Robinson — died on June 18, 2025.
Robinson’s brother, Tony Robinson, sued the company in December. The lawsuit alleges Darryl Robinson suffered injuries that led to his death 11 months later.
Police in Orange booked Arechiga, but prosecutors did not immediately charge the defendant in connection with the alleged attack, asking for further investigation, according to Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office.
Arechiga did not enter a plea at his arraignment Monday in the jail courtroom in Santa Ana. His bail was set at $2 million, but a judge will reconsider a request from prosecutors to hold the defendant without bail at his arraignment Feb. 2 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.