WOODLAND — The day before he allegedly stabbed a Woodland massage worker to death, Rohail Sarwar revealed an aggressive side his mistress said she never knew existed.
It was Aug. 20, 2018, and the couple — who had been engaged in an extramarital affair since the previous May — had gone to Berkeley for a romantic lunch date.
But Sarwar was upset over his mistress’ continued sexual relations with her husband, said T.N., whose full name The Enterprise is withholding because she is a victim of sexual assault — one she said occurred in a hotel on the way home from Berkeley after they fought in her car.
“If you resist, I’m going to break your legs,” Sarwar told T.N., the woman testified Friday during the first day of Sarwar’s murder trial in Yolo Superior Court. Later, she said, Sarwar threatened to kill her because she refused to take a shower.
Earlier, during her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Diane Ortiz described the defendant’s frame of mind this way: “In Sarwar’s world, ‘no’ is never an acceptable answer.”
A recent immigrant from Pakistan, Sarwar took up residence with his wife and child at an apartment complex across the street from Woodland’s Cottonwood Plaza — also the location of Cottonwood Massage.
That’s where a client walked in at about 5:45 p.m. Aug. 21, 2018, to discover a woman lying dead at the end of a hallway.
Junying Lu, 51, an employee at the business for only a month, had suffered 14 stab wounds from her scalp to her stomach, including two that pierced through her lungs. The knife tip was found embedded in her skull.
A crime-scene photo displayed in court elicited sobs from one of Lu’s relatives in the courtroom audience.
Woodland police investigators determined the violent assault took place inside a washroom, where blood spattered the walls and knife marks pocked the door’s interior, “indicating that the door was shut and Ms. Lu was trapped inside with her assailant,” Ortiz told the nine-man, three-woman jury.
Bloody palm prints on the business’ back door showed Lu at one point tried to escape, but collapsed before she could make it out.
An hour before she died, however, Lu left a crucial clue, calling her boss to inform her that “the pee guy is in here.”
Later identified as Sarwar, “the pee guy” had repeatedly asked for sex from Cottonwood Massage’s employees in recent months, including one incident in which he tried to sexually assault the owner, S.X., during a rubdown, Ortiz said.
Sarwar was blacklisted from the business for a time, but returned on Aug. 21, waiting inside for a half hour while Lu massaged another client.
Surveillance video at the shopping center captured the suspected killer’s movements as he walked back and forth between Cottonwood Massage and nearby Bob’s Liquor, where he was caught on camera buying a pocket knife, according to Ortiz.
Video also captured the killer leaving the massage business with what appeared to be blood covering the man’s hands.
Figuring the assailant might have a school-aged child, police took the suspect’s photograph to a nearby elementary school, where staff provided his identity. He was arrested two days after the homicide, his bloodied clothing still in a hamper inside his apartment.
On his pants was a mix of Lu’s and Sarwar’s blood, his coming from a cut he sustained to his hand during the attack, Ortiz said.
Sarwar denied being inside Cottonwood Massage or buying the knife until confronted with photographs showing otherwise, said Ortiz, who also noted that Sarwar seemed to know details of the murder that he shared with his boss even as the crime scene was still being processed.
The 28-year-old Sarwar has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, including murder with special circumstances for lying in wait and murder in the commission of a burglary. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
His defense remains unclear, as his public defender Ron Johnson declined to deliver an opening statement until the start of his case.
Testimony resumes on Monday from T.N., who on Friday recalled that Sarwar apologized to her the day after the hotel assault and asked to go back to Berkeley for lunch.
After they returned home, Sarwar called her sounding “desperate,” she said, asking her to come see him. She refused, citing family obligations.
Around 6 p.m. Sarwar called again, sounding “really nervous,” T.N. said. They met an hour later at a local park, where Sarwar paced and talked aimlessly. A bandage on Sarwar’s hand caught T.N.’s attention, but Sarwar said the injury was from slicing onions for his wife, she said.
Police took Sarwar into custody on Aug. 23, 2018.
T.N. said she disclosed the affair to her husband following Sarwar’s arrest, and she’s been shunned by her family as a result. At one point, she said, her family tried to send her back to her native Pakistan, where she faced execution as punishment.
“No one from my family talks to me, not even my own parents,” T.N. said. “I’ve been told I’m just dead.”
She admitted she still cared for Sarwar for a while after his arrest, sending him an email at the Yolo County Jail in which she said she missed him.
“Do you still care about him?” Ortiz asked the woman.
“I don’t care about him, because he already messed up by life in many other ways,” T.N. replied. “My family’s a lie. It’s very hard for me.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene