Masseuse charged in buttock surgery death
Massage therapist who wasn’t licensed to perform medical beauty procedures faces a murder count.
A Long Beach massage therapist was charged Thursday with the death of a woman who went into cardiac arrest while receiving a buttock augmentation three years ago, officials said.
Sandra Yaneth Pérez Gonzalez, who also goes by Sandra Yaneth Slaughter, is facing one count of murder for the February 2014 death, said Ricardo Santiago, a spokesman for Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Pérez-Gonzalez is being held on $2-million bail, authorities said.
Pérez-Gonzalez could face life in prison if convicted, he said.
Pérez-Gonzalez, 45, was arrested Tuesday on a warrant in connection with Hamilet Suarez’s death, said Marlene Arrona, a spokeswoman for the Long Beach Police Department.
Arrona declined to release details about the evidence that led to Pérez-Gonzalez’s arrest.
Detectives began investigating Pérez-Gonzalez three years ago.
On the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2014, they were called to Areli’s Beauty Salon in the 2000 block of Pacific Avenue to assist firefighters with a patient who had suffered cardiac arrest “under suspicious circumstances,” police said.
When officers arrived, they found firefighters performing CPR on Suarez. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.
According to police, officers were initially told that the 36-year-old Long Beach resident had gone to the salon for a massage but went into cardiac arrest before the massage started.
Authorities said the details about Suarez’s visit to the salon were inconsistent, so homicide detectives launched an investigation.
They soon discovered that Pérez-Gonzalez was renting a treatment room in the salon and had performed an illegal buttock enhancement on Suarez, authorities said.
According to police, Pérez-Gonzalez was a licensed massage therapist but was not licensed to perform medical beauty procedures, even though she had been advertising those services, police said.
In her advertisements, authorities said, Pérez-Gonzalez claimed she could perform buttock enhancements, lip augmentations and “vampire” facelifts — a procedure in which a patient’s blood is drawn and reinjected into their face.
During the investigation, detectives found multiple vials of drugs or chemicals used in beauty medical procedures, along with medical equipment, in Pérez-Gonzalez’s treatment room.
Pérez-Gonzalez was arrested at the time on suspicion of possessing controlled substances.