Ex-death row inmate sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison for gruesome 2002 murder of young CT mother
A former death row inmate whose murder conviction was previously overturned was sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison in a retrial for the murder and rape of a young mother in her Hartford apartment more than two decades ago.
Lazale Ashby, 38, appeared in court in Hartford on Monday and was sentenced by Judge David P. Gold to 46½ years in prison for the murder of 21-year-old Elizabeth Garcia in 2002, according to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice.
Garcia was found dead in her Zion Street apartment on Dec. 2, 2002, after being badly beaten, stabbed, sexually assaulted, strangled and left to die, according to court testimony and the DCJ.
Ashby, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was arrested about nine months later and allegedly confessed to police that he had brutalized and killed Garcia, whose 2-year-old daughter was watching a Christmas movie upstairs at the time of the attack, records show.
Ashby held Garcia inside her apartment overnight and was allegedly high on PCP for some portion of the crime, which he was linked to by DNA evidence, records show.
Ashby’s DNA was found under Garcia’s fingernails and on her body, according to court records.
Ashby was arrested on Sept. 9, 2003, and was convicted in January 2008 of two counts of capital felony — which at the time was the state’s death penalty statute — murder, felony murder, first-degree sexual assault, three counts of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to death, records show.
Ex-Death Row Inmate Lazale Ashby Resentenced To Life Without Possibility Of Release
In 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court abolished the death penalty and Ashby was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release plus 125 years.
In August of 2020, the state supreme court overturned Ashby’s conviction, finding that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when a fellow prisoner, Kenneth Pladsen, got him to make admissions about the case against him.
Ashby allegedly detailed his crimes in a letter to Plasden, describing a bloody tank top he used to strangle Garcia. A handwriting expert testified at his trial that the handwriting on the note matched Ashby’s, records show.
The court found that a trial court judge erred when she declined to suppress Pladsen’s testimony and when she did not give the jury an instruction on third-party culpability, since saliva from an unidentified man was found on Garcia’s body, according to court records.
Ashby remained behind bars, as he was also serving a 25-year sentence for murder for fatally shooting Nahshon Cohen, 22, on Sept. 1, 2003.
While awaiting trial, he pleaded guilty to murder, officials said.
Ashby has been in custody since his arrest for Garcia’s murder and is being held at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Facility in Suffield, according to Department of Correction records.
His case was prosecuted by Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney John F. Fahey.