‘He Was Going to Rape and Murder Me’: An Alleged Stalker Was ‘Beaten to a Pulp’ After Terrorizing a Cloverdale Family 

Cloverdale resident Angela Cordova awoke this last Wednesday morning, June 21, 2023, and found a stranger’s smartphone on her property. At that time, the discovery was odd but failed to foretell the violence that would follow. 

By day’s end, that smartphone would prove to be the first clue that a stalker by the name of Margarito “Tito” Segobiano had allegedly infiltrated her rural property and laid in wait supplied with a 7” dagger with intentions to attack Cordova.

Unknowingly, Cordova says she walked into his trap while in the company of her 11-year-old daughter and found the stranger in one of her outbuildings.

Angela Cordova told us that after what happened, she knew immediately that her story had to be told. 

According to her account, It was around 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday when she found a smartphone inside her perimeter gate that allows access to her property. The phone’s lock screen had an image of a family she did not recognize. 

An avid contributor to the Community of Cloverdale CA Facebook page, she took a picture of the image and asked the group members if they could offer any insight into the identity of the owner. 

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A group member privately messaged and identified the image as a family portrait of Margarito “Tito” Segobiano’s son and his son’s children.

Upon learning this, Cordova realized she knew Segobiano, and the cell phone oddly placed on the inside of her perimeter gate belonged to the man that had been sending her strange, troubling texts over the previous several months. 

Cordova told us she first met Segobiano around September 2017 when he worked as a security guard at a lumber mill not far from her home. They had exchanged numbers at that time so they could easily share information if/when there was a security concern in the immediate area. They spoke on a few occasions regarding community safety issues and then their correspondence stopped until April of this year when he began texting her unsettling messages. 

On April 20, Segobiano texted Cordova “…you’ll always be here for me” and she never responded. On May 19, he texted, “Can you come by and see me?” and Cordova responded with a simple “?”. Segobiano’s answer: “Nothing really just wanted to talk to you about spirtuality.” 

On June 13, he sent Cordova a long-form text that indicated to her Segobiano was possibly on drugs or falling into mental illness:

I'm in a lot of trouble both financially and spiritually. You're the only one I know and trust mostly on the level of spiritually. I've been fighting your spirit for the last six months. Not sure if you believe or understand but it's the truth and I need your help. No I'm not loaded just in case you're going to ask. My spiritual battles have been so tough that I have talents now that I've never had, I can sing I can dance, I've tapped into the essence of martial arts. I'm so fast I'd be considered a lethal weapon. I've turned into a fearless warrior who fears no death but I have no one in my life who can help with it all. You're the only one I know in this town the only one I trust who hasn't turned her back on me. I hope you'll respond or maybe come by so I can show you my talents. You're the only friend I know. I truly need your help please.

Cordova ignored the text. She could never imagine Segobiano’s spiraling would culminate in the violence that occurred on Tuesday afternoon. 

A nearby neighbor of Segobiano told us she has watched his downward spiral since the winter of 2022. She maintained what she described as a cordial, “neighborly” relationship with him until that time.

The neighbor described Segobiano pacing up and down her neighborhood chain smoking cigarettes wearing a bathrobe and a cowboy hat. He would spend hours in his driveway punching and drumming on a five-gallon bucket sporadically screaming about God and spirits while telling passersby he was training. The neighbor’s two children would come inside from playing. They were afraid and asked her why that man was shouting to no one.

The nearby neighbor told us that last December her husband was out of town when Segobiano knocked on her door. He had come over before borrowing various items, so she answered the door and let him inside.

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Once inside, Segobiano was clearly not the neighbor she had come to know. His energy seemed manic. He told the young mother and wife that he had been “talking to God” who commanded that she become Segobiano’s wife. He assured her that he would provide, that she would never have to work again and that he would take care of her two kids.

The young neighbor told us she was terrified. She did not know what Segobiano would do if she pushed back. She spoke to him kindly asking him, “Are you okay, Tito? Do I need to call someone for you?”

She said the questions seemed to “snap him into a moment of clarity” and he said, “I fucked up.” After this, he left her home quickly.

As time passed, the neighbor has watched Segobiano continue to fall into what she believed was methamphetamine addiction and mental illness. On some days, he could be heard shouting about God in a British accent. On other days, he shouted with a Southern drawl.

When she heard about what happened to the Cordova family, she said, “It was just a matter of time.”

This last Wednesday, Angela Cordova shook off the strange discovery of the smartphone inside her gate and went to work. 

Back on her property, her husband was checking out their gate where the phone had been found that morning and realized that their electric gate’s control box had clearly been tampered with and damaged the evening before. He called Angela and informed her of the discovery. 

The combination of the damaged control box and the abandoned smartphone sparked a troubling realization: someone had been trying to break through the Cordova’s front gate the night before.

She called the Cloverdale Police immediately. 

Chief of Cloverdale Police Jason Ferguson told us an officer was dispatched to the Cordova residence around 1:13 p.m. and documented that someone had damaged the family’s gate and a phone was recovered belonging to Segobiano. The officer also took note that Segobiano had texted Angela about “spirituality” and other “weird circumstances.”

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After taking the information, Chief Ferguson told us his officer set out to check in on Segobiano at his home on Cloverdale’s Butler Court. Upon arrival, there was no sign of him. 

Though uneasy, after Angela Cordova and her husband Max met with the police officer, they tried their best to continue on with their day. 

Angela decided to work from home. In the company of her 11-year-old daughter, she walked to an outbuilding on her property approximately 250’ from her main house to get some work done and upon opening the door was aghast at what she saw.

Margarito “Tito Segobiano”, the same man she suspected of attempting to break into her property the night before, was sitting in the doorway. He wore a sleeveless red shirt and blue jeans. Anglea’s room reeked of chemicals and cigarettes. 

Angela started screaming for her husband Max who was 250’ away in her main house. She screamed for her older daughter who was also back at the main house to grab her personal firearm. She screamed to scare the intruder and draw his attention worried that he would notice her 11-year-old daughter and set his sights on her. 

Angela told us, “He charged me. I ran backward to lure him towards my house so he wouldn’t gain sight of my 11-year-old.”

Angela’s husband emerged from the main house and went into protector mode immediately. According to Angela, with full force, Max plowed towards Segobiano who swung his fists as Max got close. Soon the intruder was on the ground, Max had him pinned, knees on top of his shoulders, and as Angela put it, Max, “beat him to a pulp.”  Despite the beating he was receiving, Cordova said Segobiano was fighting back the entire time. 

Angela’s oldest daughter had retrieved her mother’s personal firearm in the tumult and given it to her mother. Angela had Segobiano in her sights while Max incapacitated him using his fists. 

Angela called Cloverdale Police directly who she said arrived in less than one minute.

Chief Ferguson told us officers arrived on the scene and found that the “reporting party was exercising his right to protect his property and family” by holding down Segobiano awaiting law enforcement’s arrival. “Given the injuries on Segobiano’s face, he was transported to a local hospital immediately,” the Chief said.

A picture of Segobiano Angela snapped as he was being wheeled away by medics shows his face swollen and bloody, contorted by bruising and fluid.

Max walked away with bruised knuckles and knees, as well as bite marks on his forearm from Segobiano.  

Officers found Segobiano’s backpack in the outbuilding where he had been lying in wait. Inside was a large dagger, a methamphetamine pipe, and a small baggie of methamphetamine.

Chief Ferguson told us Segobiano faces a felony charge for stalking as well as misdemeanor charges for burglary, carrying a dirk or dagger, vandalism, trespassing, and possession of a controlled substance and paraphernalia.

When we interviewed Chief Ferguson on Thursday, June 23, 2023, Segobiano was in the hospital receiving treatment for his wounds. 

Angela Cordova has since learned that Segobiano was released from the hospital due to a mix-up between the hospital and law enforcement. He reportedly was dropped off at his residence in Cloverdale. 

We reached out to Chief Ferguson on Saturday evening to confirm but as of publication have yet to hear back. 

Looking back on Tuesday afternoon, Angela Cordova told us, “You will never understand the adrenaline and fear.” She worries for her daughters who watched their loving father “beat a man’s face in.” 

The Cordova family has been fluctuating between gratitude for Max who subdued the intruder, bewilderment as to why the man who threatened their safety is back on the streets, and fear that he could return. 

Angela says she cannot stop thinking: “He was here to rape and murder me.”

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