Oceanside
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A 20-year-old Marine lance corporal and his wife pleaded innocent Thursday in Vista Superior Court to charges that they beat their young son to death May 27 and threw his body into a trash dumpster.
Paul Mesa Jr. and his wife, Josephine Ann, 18, were ordered by Judge Zalman Scherer to return to court Aug. 19 to set a trial date.
A few hours after Josephine Mesa was arrested by Oceanside police in connection with the beating death of 23-month-old Paul Anthony Mesa, the young woman gave birth to another child. That baby has been placed, along with the couple’s 33-month-old son, under the care of the county.
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