Child's killer gets life sentence
Posted: 01/09/2010 12:00:00 AM MST
EL PASO -- Francisco Javier Castañeda will spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter.
Jurors convicted him of capital murder soon after arriving at the County Courthouse on Friday morning. In all, they deliberated less than five hours over part of two days.
After District Court Judge Chris Antcliff read the verdict, Castañeda, 27, bowed his head and began to cry. His family did the same.
Relatives of his victim, Jacqueline Gonzalez, cheered briefly.
Jurors found that Castañeda beat Jacqueline to death on Nov. 19, 2007. As a formality of the capital-murder verdict, Antcliff then sentenced Castañeda to life in prison without parole.
When Castañeda's attorneys told him that a victim-impact statement would be given by Jacqueline's grandmother, Elizabeth Gonzalez, he initially refused to sit for it. But after a brief meeting between Antcliff, prosecutors and defense attorneys, Antcliff told Gonzalez to go ahead with her statement.
"I don't wish this on any grandmother, what I'm going through," Gonzalez said through a court interpreter. "I'd like to know what harm she did for you to torture her and hit her so much. If she was such a burden, why didn't you give her to me?"
As Gonzalez tearfully shouted at Castañeda, he sometimes turned his back to her. Eventually, though, he faced her.
"I'd like to tell you, Francisco, that you took what I loved the most," she said. "Never while I'm alive will I ever forgive you."
During the weeklong trial, jurors heard testimony from police alleging that Castañeda and his girlfriend, Yara Belen Perez, beat Jacqueline so severely that her small intestine ruptured. Dr. Juan Contín, the county's deputy chief medical examiner, testified that the injury caused her death.
Contín said he also found at least 70 bruises on Jacqueline's body, including many on her lower back.
Officer David Gonzalez testified on the trial's first day that he found Jacqueline's body in the trunk of Perez's gold Dodge Stratus. Jacqueline had been stuffed in a blue plastic bin underneath a pile of dirty laundry.
Gonzalez said he found the little girl's body after the bin tipped over during a search of the trunk.
Jurors also heard the 911 call placed by Castañeda's sister, Abigail Castañeda, who told an emergency dispatcher that she saw Jacqueline's lifeless body on the floor of Perez's apartment in the 600 block of South Yarbrough, but that Perez did not allow her in to try and help. When officers arrived at the apartment, the couple denied they had a child other than Jacqueline's 5-year-old sister.
When officers examined the 5-year-old and discovered that she had no visible injuries, they became suspicious and asked the couple for
the keys to their car.
Castañeda's attorney, Louis Lopez, said he would appeal the verdict.
"There's no justice in this case," Lopez said. "The jury didn't hear the whole circumstance."
Lopez said he had been prepared to tell jurors that Perez was an abusive mother who had been investigated several times by Child Protective Services, but Antcliff did not allow that evidence to be presented.
Perez, charged with capital murder and injury to a child, is scheduled to stand trial in April.
Castañeda's mother, Maria Castañeda, said she disagreed with the jury.
"I know he's not guilty. The guilty one is Yara," she said.
Assistant District Attorney Penny Hamilton said jurors made the right choice. Jacqueline's relatives said they were also happy with the verdict.
"Justice was served. It was just a matter of time," said Jacqueline's father, Marco Gonzalez.
After Castañeda's conviction, his relatives lined up one by one to hug him and say goodbye.
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