California man guilty of beheading mother of 2 with samurai sword, jury rules
A California man beheaded his ex-girlfriend, a mother of two, with a samurai sword on the street in a daytime attack last September.
On Monday, a jury found Jose Solano Landaeta, 34, guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a sword in the killing of 27-year-old Karina Castro, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office.
"All I can say right now is that I'm relieved, but not as much as I'd like to be," Castro's father, Martin Castro, told reporters outside the San Mateo courthouse on Monday. "While I'm glad he's going to be in prison for as long as humanly possible, my daughter's still gone. I don't find a lot of satisfaction out of this, but I'll take whatever I can get."
"My daughter was my life," he added in his statement recorded by FOX 2 San Francisco. "I just want her back."
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Martin added that he felt the trial was "a joke" that "never needed to happen." He "didn't realize how brutally" his daughter was killed until the trial, he continued.
Karina was a "selfless" woman who "loved her kids more than anything," Martin said. Karina had two young children — one who she shared with Landaeta.
FOX 2 previously reported that Karina had a restraining order against Landaeta but continued to contact him.
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Landaeta's attorney, Robert Cummings, told reporters on Monday that Landaeta has schizophrenia and suffers from psychotic breaks, "which is what happened in this case."
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"The victim in this case, God rest her soul, was pushing everybody she could and threatened [Landaeta's] mother's life. … That drove him to go over there and commit the act that he's now convicted [of]," Cummings said.
During his arraignment, the then-suspect pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was later deemed competent to stand trial. He would go on to give his own testimony but abruptly stopped halfway through, according to FOX 2.
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He also refused to attend closing arguments last week, according to San Mateo County records.
Cummings described his client as a "working professional" and "one of the … kindest souls you'd run into," but he had regular "psychotic breaks."
Landaeta is facing 26 years to life. He will be eligible for parole after serving his sentence, according to Cummings.