Thread: Judge sentences child rapist, killer

Judge sentences child rapist, killer
Life in prison awaits Rios
By RICK YENCER
ryencer@muncie.gannett.com

MUNCIE -- Child killer Simon Rios was sentenced Monday to spend the rest of his life in prison for molesting, raping and killing 10-year-old Alejandra Gutierrez, then leaving her body in a Delaware County gravel pit.

"Simon Rios is the most contemptible offender I have ever encountered," Delaware County Prosecutor Mark McKinney said. "He should be put to death for what he has done, but there is truly no punishment that is severe enough."

Delaware County Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees accepted a plea agreement calling for Rios to get life without parole, and an extra 100 years for child molesting and the rape of Gutierrez, who disappeared after walking to a bus stop in Fort Wayne on Dec. 8, 2005.

Rios, 35, a Mexican immigrant, stared at the judge, offering no statement through his Spanish interpreter.

Public defender Michelle Kraus, representing Rios, said a trial would not have explained why Rios killed the neighbor girl, a friend of one his daughters.

"There is no explanation why," Kraus said.

Rios picked up Gutierrez on her way to school, raped her and then strangled her, leaving her in a gravel pit off Black's Cemetery Road near Albany.

On Dec. 13, Rios beat and strangled his wife and three daughters to death with his bare hands and an electrical cord. He also faces a plea of life without parole for those four murders in Allen County.

Five days after killing his family, Rios confessed to killing Gutierrez, drawing a map to where he left the body.

McKinney offered the gruesome details of how Rios pretended to help the Gutierrez family find their daughter while maintaining the secret that he had raped and killed her.

"He actually got in a car with Alejandra's older sister to help look for her, and he brought candles and a statue of the Virgin Mary to the Gutierrez home," said McKinney.

Rios even went to St. Patrick's Cathedral to pray for the girl's safe return and posted photos of the victim around Fort Wayne.

Given the sentence of a lifetime in prison, McKinney hoped that Gutierrez's family would get some small measure of peace from the closure the sentence represented, besides hoping that Rios "is tormented every minute of every day of the rest of his life by the memory of what he did to Gutierrez and his wife and children."

Members of Gutierrez's family did not attend Monday's sentencing in Delaware County, but Alejandra's brother, Joe-Luis, wrote a letter, saying his sister's loss was too great to ever be compensated by legal punishment.

"No type of punishment will ever bring my sister back to us," he wrote.

Yakelinee Martinez, a victim's advocate for the Fort Wayne police department, said Gutierrez's family had strong religious beliefs as Roman Catholics and did not believe Rios should be executed.

"They believe his real punishment will come from the Lord," she said.

Monday's sentencing had been postponed after Kraus attempted to have Rios declared mentally retarded, making him ineligible for the death sentence.

Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull rejected efforts to have a expert determine Rios's mental capacity last month; Rios then pleaded guilty to killing his wife and children in a deal with Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards to avoid the death penalty.

That sentencing could happen Oct. 1, when the original trial for murdering his family was set.

Contact news reporter Rick Yencer at 213-5833.

http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.d ... /709180353

Previous alipac story:

Fort Wayne girl is dead because of nation’s immigration failures

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... os+illegal

Illegal Alien Gets 4 Life Sentences in Deaths of Wife, 3 Daughters

Oct 2, 2007

A Mexican man has been given four more life sentences for killing his wife and three daughters in their Fort Wayne home.

35 year old Simon Rios also received a life sentence last month for sexually assaulting and killing a 10 year old neighbor girl. All five sentences are without the possibility of parole.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office says Rios is an illegal alien.

During Monday's hearing, Judge Fran Gull accepted a plea agreement that allowed Rios to avoid the death penalty.

He had pleaded guilty in August to the beating and strangulation death of his 28 year old wife, Ana, the strangling deaths of their daughters in their Fort Wayne home in 2005.

Rios told Gull he came to the United States to fulfill his dreams but allowed what he called "the forces of evil" to take over.

He did not say why he had killed his family.

http://www.fox28.com/News/index.php?ID=25832