After years of legal delays and a retrial, a Santa Clara County jury this week convicted Bulos “Paul” Zumot of killing his ex-girlfriend and burning her body in their Palo Alto home in 2009.
The jury reached its decision on the 16th anniversary of the murder.
Zumot was previously convicted of murder and arson in 2011 for killing Jennifer Schipsi, a 29-year-old real estate agent, on Oct.15, 2009. To hide the crime, prosecutors saud he set their shared Addison Avenue home on fire with her body inside.
After a jury convicted him in 2011, the hookah shop owner was sentenced to 33 years to life in prison. However, a federal district court judge in 2020 granted him a new trial, after Zumot claimed revelations of text messages between the defendant and his alleged victim were prejudicial.
Zumot will be sentenced on Nov. 21 in Superior Court in Morgan Hill. He faces life in prison.
“Justice for Jennifer took far too long,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement today. “Her family, the Palo Alto police officers, my prosecutors and this community, never forgot her. This week, 16 tragic and frustrating years later, this defendant found out that you can’t play the system forever. You can’t get away with murder in Santa Clara County.”
Zumot strangled Jennifer Schipsi to death after she told him she was leaving him and would be reporting him to police.
At trial, the evidence showed that Jennifer had told friends, family, police, and even strangers that Zumot had repeatedly threatened to kill her throughout their tumultuous two-year relationship.
In a dramatic recording Jennifer made seven weeks before her death, she explained in her own words how Zumot persuaded her to stay with him with promises to change and to go to therapy. She told her friends that she knew if she stayed, something bad would happen to her.
After strangling Jennifer to death, Zumot left her body at their cottage while he attended his court-mandated domestic violence class in San Jose.
Zumot then returned and, in an apparent effort to make the death look like an accident, poured gasoline all over Jennifer’s body, turned on the gas in the kitchen, and set fire to the home.
Neighbors noticed the fire in time and were able to extinguish the blaze with garden hoses before the gas could ignite and cause an explosion, leaving key evidence intact.
Tried in 2011, Zumot was convicted and sentenced. Although state courts affirmed the conviction multiple times, a federal judge reversed the conviction.
This week, a jury took two days to find the defendant guilty.
Domestic violence experts say that the moment of separation, the time where a relationship is ending, can be the most dangerous time in a relationship that has had a history of violence, Rosen’s office cautioned in a press release.
“Having a safety plan for that time, and the help of others is vital,” the DA’s office advised. “If you are in a relationship where you have suffered violence, and are getting ready to leave the relationship, please call one of the domestic violence agencies in your area or Victim Services at the District Attorney’s Office at (408) 295-2656. We can help and we can connect you with shelter and other services.”
