Oscar Lozada trial to begin Monday

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – The murder trial of Oscar Lozada is scheduled to begin Monday, February 6, in East Baton Rouge Township.

Lozada is accused of killing his teacher Sylviane Finck Lozada in 2011 and then fleeing the country with her daughter.

District Attorney Hillar Moore says his office will seek the death penalty if the jury convicts Lozada of second-degree murder.

Sylviane Lozada, a teacher at Brusly High School in West Baton Rouge Township, disappeared on July 5, 2011. Oscar Lozada was arrested in Mexico in 2018.

Her daughter Angeline was at a school in Mexico near where she had lived with her father, investigators said. Major Todd Morris, a detective with the East Baton Rouge Community Sheriff’s Office, had tracked Lozada for years and, with the help of several US federal agencies, located him in Mexico. In a warrant filed in September 2018, EBRSO detectives charged Oscar Lozado with second-degree murder. A few weeks later, a Texas judge granted Oscar Lozada’s extradition, paving the way for his return to Baton Rouge.

Oscar Lozada admitted to killing his wife Sylviane on October 5, 2018, according to East Baton Rouge Township Sheriff Sid Gautreaux. Lozada returned to the East Baton Rouge community that day for the first time since leaving the country in 2011. He was questioned by detectives from the East Baton Rouge Township Sheriff’s Office and confessed to the murder, Gautreaux said.

Detectives said they initially did not file a second-degree murder warrant against Lozada when his wife first disappeared because they wanted to make sure he would cooperate and communicate with authorities. He eventually left the US and settled in Venezuela. Detectives also wanted to be able to track him if he left Venezuela. However, they filed an arrest warrant for domestic violence.

Officials also said Lozada monitored social media and news about the case from the United States while in Venezuela.

Detective Todd Morris says he stayed in touch with Lozada while he was in Venezuela until around mid-2016. Lozada then moved to Mexico alone in 2017, leaving his daughter behind.

Detectives allege that surveillance video from the Lowe’s store on South Mall Drive in Baton Rouge shows Oscar, accompanied by his daughter, entering the store on July 6, 2011 and purchasing 15 bags of concrete and nine 5-gallon buckets with lids and luggage locks .

After the trip to Lowe’s, the warrant states, Oscar and his then 4-year-old daughter went to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. The next day, according to the warrant, Oscar Lozado texted his boss saying he would be out of work for two to three weeks due to an operation. On July 9, 2011, Oscar and his daughter boarded a flight to Venezuela, the arrest warrant said. Detectives searched Lozada’s home in Baton Rouge on July 22, 2011.

“During the search of the garage, crime scene analysts found suspected blood in at least nine different areas of the garage,” the warrant said.

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The blood was tested at the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab and found to be Sylviane’s, the warrant said. According to detectives, there has been no activity on Sylviane’s bank account or credit card since her disappearance.

EBRSO investigators said they had spoken to Oscar several times since his wife’s disappearance, and each time he said he didn’t know where she was. Detectives said a search of records showed police had been called to the couple’s home several times before Sylviane’s disappearance due to domestic disturbances.

These include an incident in 2009 when detectives found in their report that Oscar allegedly admitted to “pulling” and hitting Sylviane, the warrant states.

The two had been married for six years at the time of Sylviane’s disappearance.

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