Left: Angel Gabriel Cuz-Choc. Right: Amalia Coc Choc de Pec and her daughter Estrella Anastasia Pec Coc (Hillsborough County State Attorney”s Office).
A man who murdered his girlfriend in a trailer on a Florida strawberry field and then went inside the home and stabbed her 4-year-old daughter to death in the bathtub received the ultimate punishment.
Angel Gabriel Cuz-Choc, 33, was sentenced to death for the murders of Amalia Coc Choc de Pec, 36, and her daughter Estrella Anastasia Pec Coc. A jury convicted Cuz-Choc of first-degree murder and recommended he receive the death penalty over life in prison. Cuz-Choc entered the country unlawfully in 2023 and is a suspect in two separate murders in his native Guatemala, local Fox affiliate WTVT reported.
The killings happened on April 24, 2024, at a mobile home in the 3700 block of Sumner Road in Dover, outside Tampa. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office received a call at about 5:30 p.m. regarding a dead female, deputies said in a news release.
Authorities found the side of the mobile home smeared with a bloody handprint from the woman, suggesting she had been fighting for her life, trying to escape the violence, officials said. She was found dead inside a trailer in the backyard “in her own puddle of blood,” and the girl dead inside the home, officials said.
The suspect had run away, prompting a manhunt that ended after 18 hours when a police dog found the suspect nearby in heavy vegetation, an arrest in which the sheriff’s office released body camera footage. Authorities say the suspect became enraged when his girlfriend came home later than expected
“This is not a sentence anyone celebrates. This was one of the most horrific crimes we’ve ever seen in Hillsborough County. The case has now come full circle. Nothing can bring Amalia and Estrella back, but we do believe we’ve gotten justice for them and their surviving family members in Guatemala,” State Attorney Suzy Lopez said in a statement.
Judge Michelle Sisco became emotional during the sentencing hearing while describing the facts of the murder which she called “heinous, atrocious and cruel,” local NBC affiliate WFLA reported.
“[Estrella] sustained at least six significant injuries to her body, two to her neck and four to her right hand,” Sisco reportedly said. “The court finds that the evidence introduced to trial established that [Estrella] was alive and conscious when she received the knife wounds, as demonstrated by Dr. Webb’s testimony that the wounds to [Estrella’s] hands were defensive wounds from grabbing a blade.”
Jason Kandel contributed to this report
