Thread: Handyman Gets Life In Suburban N.Y. Murder

http://www.wral.com/apnationalnews/9218458/detail.html

NEW CITY, N.Y. -- A laborer who raped and murdered a suburban homemaker in her bedroom after being hired to clean a backyard deck was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the chance of parole.

The sentencing came on what would have been the 13th wedding anniversary of the victim, Mary Nagle, and her husband, Daniel.

Douglas Herrera Castellanos "beat, cut, raped, sodomized and strangled the greatest love of my life and the mother of my two children," Daniel Nagle told the judge at the hearing.

Nagle said he and his children had visited Mary Nagle's grave on Mother's Day. He told the judge his 7-year-old son, Chris, asked: "Will we ever be OK? Will we ever be normal? Will we learn to live with only the three of us?"

State Supreme Court Justice William Kelly sentenced Herrera to life without parole plus 124 years, saying he wanted to guarantee that Herrera "will never have the chance" to commit another crime.

The April 2005 slaying of the 42-year-old mother drew wide attention because the attacker allegedly used her cell phone afterward to brag about the crime to her relatives. Five women said they received calls from a man with a Spanish accent who spoke lewdly about what had happened to Mary Nagle.

Herrera, 30, a Guatemalan immigrant whose visa expired five years ago, had Mary Nagle's cell phone with him when he was arrested. He was convicted last month of rape and first-degree murder.

Herrera was working for a house-painting contractor and had been assigned to power-wash the Nagles' backyard deck. He testified that he had partied on beer and cocaine the night before and did not remember entering the house or killing the woman. However, he said, he did recall waking up next to her bloody body.

"I would do anything to change what happened," he said at his sentencing. "Forgive me."

This horror took place not all that far from me. I've done business around there.

That neighborhood {and many others} hire illegals for gardening as a rule.
It was a gruesome murder and he should have gotten the death penalty.

The family-values work-oriented diverse possessor of a beautiful culture will, at least, not be lonely.

There will be many non-citizens in prison to ensure he feels right at home.