Armando Gabriel Perez, acting as his own attorney, told Judge Charles Rogers that he wanted to plead guilty just as Deputy District Attorney Teresa Santana was to present her opening statement in his trial.
"I know it's the right thing to do," Perez told the judge. "I want to plead guilty to all charges."
Perez pleaded guilty to premeditated first-degree murder and admitted a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait in the Oct. 12, 2010, killing of Diana Gonzalez.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Perez turned toward his late wife's mother, sister and brother to apologize.
"Save your words," the victim's mother told the defendant.
Outside court, the victim's older sister told reporters that Perez's apology "meant nothing."
"We know what kind of person he is," Janette Gonzalez said.
Perez will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Jan. 16.
Santana said Perez was a married man with children when he met the victim and got her pregnant the day she turned 18.
Perez and Gonzalez were married in December 2009 and he began beating her a few months later after they moved into together, Santana said.
Then, in September 2010, Gonzalez went to San Diego police after she said that Perez abducted her, beat her and sexually assaulted her while holding her in motel rooms for several days. Perez was jailed based on the allegations but released after four days when the District Attorney's Office determined there was not enough evidence to file charges against him.
But Gonzalez then filed a restraining order against Perez, which made him angry and he began stalking her, ultimately grabbing her as she walked to her car at school, where she was "slaughtered" in a men's restroom, Santana said.
Perez had told Gonzalez he would kill her if she ever tried to leave him, the prosecutor said. The couple had a 9-month-old daughter at the time of the slaying.
After the killing, Perez fled to Mexico and remained a fugitive until he was arrested by Tijuana Metropolitan Police in February 2012.
He was extradited to San Diego after prosecutors agreed not to seek his execution.
