Prosecutor Describes Suspect in Slaying as Insanely Jealous : Moorpark: D. A. says James Linkenauger beat his wife so badly that her blood was splattered across two rooms of their home.

A Moorpark man, insane with jealousy and emboldened by a two-day drinking binge, beat and choked the breath from his wife minutes after she returned home from a holiday weekend with friends in Las Vegas, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

James M. Linkenauger beat his wife so badly the night of Jan. 17 that blood splattered across two rooms of their house and seeped through the carpet to the foundation, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy told a Ventura County Superior Court jury as Linkenauger’s murder trial began.

The 38-year-old unemployed mechanic is accused of fatally choking JoAnn Linkenauger, his 39-year-old wife of two years, who worked as a food service director at a Culver City studio.

Linkenauger was arrested the day after the killing and has been in the Ventura County Jail since.

“He choked her so hard he broke both sides of her voice box,” Hardy told the jury.

After Hardy concluded, defense attorney Louis B. Samonsky Jr. said he would wait until the prosecution completes its case before addressing the jury.

“In light of Mr. Hardy’s interesting comments, we’d like to reserve our opening statement until we see some proof,” he said.

Outside court, however, Samonsky said he intended to prove that the victim kept whole portions of her life hidden from others, including her husband.

“That secret life had the potential to produce someone who could do her in,” he said.

He declined to explain how blood stains matching the victim’s blood type might have been splashed around the Linkenauger home without his client’s knowledge. Nor did he address other circumstantial evidence, such as two restraining orders the victim had obtained alleging that her husband had beaten her.

“Just wait,” Samonsky said. “All will be revealed.”

Linkenauger, a pot-bellied balding man sporting a ruffled gray beard, took detailed notes at Tuesday’s proceedings and conferred often with Samonsky and a private investigator working for the attorney. Samonsky said Linkenauger will testify.

The defendant chuckled and smiled broadly numerous times. But he looked away from the jury box when Hardy showed the panel graphic photos of the scene where his wife’s half-naked body was dumped in a mud-soaked ditch near California 118 and Somis Road.

The couple had moved to Camarillo from West Virginia in 1990, then had settled into a small house on Flory Avenue in Moorpark a few months before her death, Hardy said.

Hardy portrayed Linkenauger as an underachieving husband incensed at his wife’s success.

“The reason she is dead is a hate that had grown over two years,” Hardy told the jury. “He spent his time drinking . . . and getting jealous of his wife by the day.”

The first witness was Rodney Cooper, a longtime friend of the victim who drove with her to Las Vegas two days before she was killed. He said JoAnn Linkenauger had told him more than once that she was afraid of her husband. After spending the weekend with Cooper and his wife, “she seemed concerned about leaving (the Coopers’ Burbank house) and said she would very likely come back,” Cooper testified.

Cooper said the victim had told him that she lied to her husband about where she was spending the weekend. He also testified that she had dated one of her employees at least once, and that she had made several phone calls and received some pager messages while in Las Vegas.

Outside court, Samonsky said evidence of the victim’s “secret life” included information suggesting that she maintained a private room or apartment in Los Angeles.

He said he expects Cooper’s wife, Susan, to testify that JoAnn Linkenauger acted as though someone was inside her Las Vegas hotel room when Susan Cooper went to borrow a hairbrush.