Mum discovers daughter's body on violent ex's bathroom floor after brutal murder

Mirelle Mateus eventually broke away from her abusive relationship, but Aaron Romo wasn’t prepared to accept it was over and tragically the 24 year old nurse met a horrific end

It was a whirlwind romance that saw a couple moving in together after just one month of dating. But while it appeared that Aaron Romo and Mirelle Mateus were swept up in a new relationship, having Mirelle move into his apartment as soon as possible was an indicator of Romo’s controlling behaviour. He wanted Mirelle where he could watch her every move.

Although the pair both liked to work out at the gym, they were opposites in a lot of ways. Romo, who ran a car upholstery business, liked to drink and party. Mirelle, 24, was a nurse who loved to travel and enjoyed spending time with friends and family. They met in May 2022 and moved into Romo’s apartment in Anaheim, California. Their relationship was turbulent, with arguments that were usually triggered by Romo’s jealousy. He was possessive and when Mirelle tried to pull back from the relationship, she would confide in her worried family that Romo would threaten to harm himself if she didn’t forgive him. Mirelle said she couldn’t live with herself if he did something bad, but it was hard for her loved ones to ignore the black eyes she tried to hide.

On 5 December 2022, Mirelle went to the police and accused Romo of hitting her and throwing her over the patio railing at his apartment. He was arrested, charged and released on bail. Mirelle applied for a restraining order, which she was granted. It prevented Romo from speaking to her or going anywhere near her until it expired in 2025. Mirelle moved back to her mum’s home and thought she was free, but Romo ignored the restraining order.

In early 2023, Romo called Mirelle 616 times in the space of a few weeks. He would turn up to her workplace and the gym. Mirelle messaged to try to get him to stay away. “Stop calling me and stop trying to be in my life,” she texted him. “I don’t want any part in yours. Figure out your own life… I’m done helping you at the expense of mine. Now be an adult for once in your life. No contact means no contact.”

SCREAMS FOR HELP

On the night of 16 March 2023, Romo went out to a bar drinking. By the early hours of the next morning, St Patrick’s Day, he offended a woman, who slapped him. He was thrown out by the bouncers where there was a fight outside and he sustained two black eyes. Even though he had been ordered not to contact Mirelle, he called her and asked her to come and pick him up and drive him home. After several calls, Mirelle finally agreed. Romo had manipulated Mirelle throughout their toxic relationship and she still didn’t feel like she could say no to him.

At Romo’s apartment, a security guard saw Romo violently yank Mirelle into his home. She was screaming for help, so the security guard called the police. “There’s a man beating up his girlfriend,” he told the dispatcher. “She was screaming right now for help and now she’s quiet.” Then he added she was screaming again.

When officers arrived, they could hear muffled voices inside the flat, but no one answered the door and they would later report they didn’t hear any screaming. They made the decision not to take it any further and drove away.

The next day, Mirelle’s mum Alice grew concerned that her daughter hadn’t returned home and wasn’t answering her mobile. She had a bad feeling something awful had happened, so she went to Romo’s flat. The front door was unlocked so she went inside. There, Alice found the body of her daughter in the bathroom. She had been brutally beaten and strangled to death.

Romo had left the scene and had driven to a former girlfriend’s home where he confessed to what he’d done. As the police hunted him down, he barricaded himself into a bedroom but was arrested soon afterwards.

Alice and Mirelle’s older sister Sandy were devastated by the killing and vowed to raise awareness about domestic violence.

At the trial this year, the defence argued that Romo, now 37, had been knocked unconscious at the bar earlier that evening and was suffering from a head injury and potentially concussion that would have impaired his ability to think about his actions. They said Romo didn’t believe he was capable of killing Mirelle because he “simply loved her too much”, but while he had done the crime, it wasn’t premeditated. “It’s far more complicated,” they said and told the jurors they should consider “drunken rage, provoked by jealousy and compounded by a bad head injury”.

Romo took the stand and said he was extremely drunk on the night of the murder and didn’t remember Mirelle even being at his apartment. He claimed he had a “foggy brain” from the fight at the bar. “We were in love with each other,” he said, describing their relationship as a “rollercoaster”. He said he had once broken her phone because she had spoken to another man. The court saw a photo of Mirelle from late 2022, where she had a black eye. “I couldn’t tell you if I gave her that black eye,” Romo said.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

The prosecution said that Romo had a pattern of being controlling and violent towards his partners. They revealed that seven of his former girlfriends had reported him for abuse and five had taken restraining orders out on him. Some testified that they had been punched, choked and stalked.

One woman had filed a 50-page restraining order after Romo had allegedly raped both her and a friend after breaking down their hotel room door in Las Vegas. She had also ended up in ER on another occasion and he had threatened to kill her.

“It’s who he is,” they said. “It’s not a concussion – he’s been abusing women for 15 years. We’re now going to say it was because of his bar fight?”

They said that anger and jealousy had turned to rage and that turned to violence. Mirelle had died because she wasn’t doing what Romo wanted. Inside the apartment, Romo had beaten Mirelle and she had fought for her life. There were blunt force injuries to her head, face and hands. Clumps of her hair were found in the apartment. Romo had written on the bathroom mirror the words, “I didn’t want this, I love U, I want to die. Please.”

In May this year, Romo was found guilty of first-degree murder and domestic battery and false imprisonment in connection with the December 2022 incident.

Mirelle’s family are taking legal action against Orange County and the Anaheim Police Department for negligence. Mirelle had a restraining order and they believe the risk should have been taken more seriously. The lawsuit includes that the medical examiner determined that Mirelle had been killed under half an hour after the police had left. She could have been saved.

Mirelle’s mum and sister have also started a petition for Mirelle’s Law, which would involve an online registration for domestic abusers so anyone would be able to look into a partner’s past. If Mirelle had known what Romo was capable of, she might never have started a relationship with him.