Video shows knife-wielding woman in Santa Rosa police lobby hours before stabbing death of her mother

A Marin County woman who police say streamed live video of herself stabbing her mother to death Monday can be seen in a TikTok video, recorded a few hours before the slaying, in the lobby of the Santa Rosa Police Department holding a knife.

Tonantzyn Oris Beltran, 28, a San Rafael resident, had been arrested early the previous morning, about 2:25 a.m. Sunday, by Santa Rosa police after a vehicle pursuit.

In the 10-minute video she took around 1:30 p.m. Monday, according to Santa Rosa police, Beltran used her cellphone to record her mother talking to a police officer inside the lobby at the department’s Sonoma Avenue headquarters. They’d come to reclaim Beltran’s car, which police had impounded the previous day.

A little over a minute into the video, she turns the camera away from the officer and her mother, and toward herself. Beltran can then be seen momentarily holding a knife in her left hand, while talking into the camera. Her coat is draped over her left forearm.

Within about three minutes, the officer finishes talking to Beltran’s mother — without noticing the knife Beltran was holding, according to the police department. After the 4 ½-minute mark, Beltran gets into the passenger seat of her mother’s car.

Taking her seat, the daughter says, “You have no idea what’s waiting for you.”

Hours later, just before 5 p.m. Monday, San Rafael police responded to a report of a fight and possible stabbing in progress at an apartment complex on Cresta Way, where Beltran’s mother lived.

Upon arriving, officers were directed to an apartment’s rear balcony. There, “they saw Beltran on a balcony holding a knife in her hand, standing next to a stabbed female victim, and her clothes soaked in blood,” said the statement. “Beltran was not readily responsive to officers’ commands and directions.”

The woman, later identified by the Marin County coroner as 55-year-old Olivia Lucia Beltran Pacheco, was pronounced dead a short time after being transported to a hospital.

While police were confronting Beltran from the balcony, another team of officers forced entry through the front door of the apartment and took her into custody, the report said.

During the investigation, according to San Rafael police, it was learned that the incident had been broadcast by Beltran via Facebook Live. Detectives worked with Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and had the video taken down.

Initial calls of the incident came from both witnesses at the scene and those who viewed the Facebook Live video.

Around 2:25 a.m. Sunday morning, the day before the stabbing, Beltran was arrested by Santa Rosa police for a felony vehicle pursuit, said Sgt. Patricia Seffens, a spokesperson for the agency.

She was booked into jail shortly after her arrest and was released on bail at about 11:15 a.m. Sunday, Seffens said.

On Monday, Beltran and her mother were meeting with a sergeant regarding Beltran’s car, which had been impounded following the vehicle pursuit. Part of that interaction is what’s seen in the TikTok video.

The recorded portion inside the lobby lasted no more than 4 minutes as Beltran’s mother assured the sergeant that her daughter would not be driving the impounded car. During their discussion, Beltran turned her phone’s camera on herself and flashed the knife with a 3-4-inch blade in her left hand.

Seffens said “it is not believed the sergeant or any other SRPD personnel were aware Beltran was in possession of the knife.”

“There are many variables to consider when reviewing this video, and any contacts between people and law enforcement officers, such as distance between parties, surrounding environment, angles, and the field of vision of the officer at the time of any incident,” Seffens said. “Images and videos captured by cameras may not accurately depict what can be seen by other people.”

The recorded interaction in the police lobby begins with the sergeant telling Beltran’s mother, “There is concern that your daughter can’t safely drive right now.

“You obviously know her. She probably has some mental health issues, based on what you said.

“In her current state, I’m not totally comfortable with her driving,” the unidentified sergeant is heard saying.

When Beltran starts talking over her mother, the sergeant tells her, “I’m talking to your mother. She actually is making sense.”

Noticing the officer’s sidearm, Beltran says, too quietly for the others to hear, “Look at that nice pistol.”

After reversing the camera to record herself, Beltran abruptly transitions to promoting an upcoming party “which is going to be lit.”

The knife is visible in her left hand for about 20 seconds during this segment.

When she turns the camera back to her mother and the officer, they’re concluding their business.

Santa Rosa police became aware of the video around 3 p.m. Wednesday, said Seffens.

Asked if Beltran’s erratic behavior might have raised red flags for the sergeant, Seffens replied that the video “was reviewed by department leadership, and the sergeant’s actions were not deemed to be improper, nor did they violate department policy, therefore a formal personnel inquiry is not warranted.”

“With the ongoing criminal investigation in San Rafael, I will not be able to answer any questions related to Beltran’s mental health,” she said.

After the sergeant made his exit, Beltran is shown on video keeping up a stream of nonlinear chatter as she leaves the station with her mother. At one point her mother asks her to stop videotaping strangers.

In the car, her mother calls a man, asking him to meet them at the towing company.

As they turn left onto Sonoma Avenue, her mother’s dreamcatcher dangling from the rearview mirror, the Eagles song “Heartache Tonight” comes on the radio.

In another short TikTok video posted the same day, Beltran wields what looks to be the same knife before the camera.

It was unknown Thursday whether it was the knife used in the stabbing.

Olivia Beltran Pacheco was described in the Marin Independent Journal as a community activist who assisted immigrants and residents in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood. In addition to working as an outreach coordinator and bilingual associate director at the Canal Welcome Center, she was an organizer for the Grassroots Leadership Network of Marin.

Her daughter, then 27, wrote about her past experience with substance abuse and mental health struggles in blog posted on Alex4Hope, where she said she began drinking at a young age.

“When I wasn’t using, I became super anxious, super depressed or just not happy,” she wrote.

In the latest TikTok video posted to Beltran’s account, she sits in a parked car with her mother, who tearfully refers to past abuses suffered by the daughter.

“Don't hurt yourself, daughter,“ the mother says. ”I don't I want you to end up in jail.“

Later in the video, the mother pleads with Beltran to “just calm down, and stay grounded. And work on yourself, and rest.

“You’ve gotta stop hurting yourself, and putting yourself in harm’s way, you hear me?

“You are not to be going out with people you don’t know. You’ve got to be safe.”

Beltran is being held in Marin County jail without bail. At her first court appearance Thursday in the homicide case, her arraignment was delayed until Feb. 2.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on X/Twitter @ausmurph88.