Man drugged, raped and murdered his own 14-year-old daughter then buried body in back yard

A father drugged, raped, and murdered his 14-year-old daughter and abused two other underage girls. Mark Mesiti, 49, confessed on Wednesday to committing the sickening crimes after evading justice for more than 11 years.

Alycia was reported missing in 2006 and Mesiti claimed she had gone on a camping trip with friends. Three years later detectives found her body buried in the back yard of Mesiti's home at the time in Ceres, California.

A post-mortem exam found she had died as a result of "mixed drug intoxication".  Police later discovered images of Mesiti sexually abusing Alycia while she was unconscious. Mesiti was also accused of sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl and a girl aged 16-17-years-old.

Mesiti was already facing trial on drugs charges in Los Angeles. His murder trial was repeatedly delayed by a number of administrative problems.It took two years for him to be convicted of running a meth lab before he was extradited to Stanislaus County to face justice over Alycia’s killing. Mesiti then changed his legal representation numerous times and at one point tried to represent himself. The judge on the case recused himself after six years meaning it wasn’t until this year that a date for trial was finally set.
The court was shown 100 images of Alycia being abused by her father, and video of him setting up a hidden camera in the 8-year-old victim's room. There were a further 1,700 images to show the jury if the trial had continued. Jurors were forced to watch three days of evidence before Mesiti suddenly decided to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table. All 49 charges were put to him again and he pleaded guilty to every one in a process that took 45 minutes, according to local newspaper the Modesto Bee.
Relatives and jurors were relieved that the child sex monster finally brought the horrific case to a close.
Roberta Fitzpatrick, the maternal great aunt of Alycia Mesiti, told the Bee: "It was just horrible pictures that I knew would only get worse. The thought of what he did to her was awful."
In a tragic twist to the case, it emerged Mesiti had been awarded custody of Alycia and her brother when he divorced their mother a year before the murder. The children's mother was suffering from depression at the time so a judge granted him full custody, even though he had a criminal record including bank fraud, drunken driving, and domestic abuse. He had repeatedly failed to attend drug and alcohol rehab programmes.