MIAMI (TCN) — A jury has recommended a 42-year-old man be put to the death for fatally suffocating his wife and her two daughters with a plastic bag in 2012.
According to the Miami Herald, Alberto Sierra killed his wife, 29-year-old Gladys Machado, and her two daughters, Julia Padrino and Daniela Padrino, ages 3 and 6 respectively, on Nov. 10, 2012.
Their bodies were found in a closet three days later, and lead investigator Jaun Chaidez identified Sierra as a suspect, swabbed him for DNA, and let him go. Sierra confessed on Nov. 19, 2012, after Chaidez told him his DNA was found on Julia Padrino’s underwear. Sierra’s 40-minute confession to Chaidez was played in court.
On the day of the killings, Sierra reportedly became angry when Machado received phone calls from a new love interest. Sierra and Machado were married but were in the midst of a separation when they went to a mall to get a birthday gift for the youngest child, per the Herald.
Machado and Sierra got into a fight in the car in front of the children, and the fight continued at home when Machado would not give Sierra the password to her phone. The Miami Herald reports Sierra confessed that he tied her up and held her at knifepoint to get the passcode, which she provided. He then suffocated her with a plastic grocery bag. About an hour later, he cut her clothes off and had sex with her body.
He then said he suffocated both children with the same bag after Julia Padrino discovered her mother’s body and started screaming, according to the Herald. He confessed that he then sexually assaulted the girl’s body, but testimony from the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies said the girl was alive during the rape.
In addition to being suffocated, Machado also sustained many stabbing, slicing, and carving wounds throughout her body, per the Herald. The bag used to suffocate the family was never found.
Machado’s son, 19-year-old Michael Padrino, survived the attack because he was at his grandmother’s house that day. NBC Miami reports he told the jury, “We were supposed to have more time together, more birthdays, more holidays, more days where nothing important is happening or arguing over dumb things.”
Sierra’s defense attorney, Khurrum Wahid, asked jurors to recommend life in prison instead of the death penalty, stating that he had suffered a brain injury during a car accident as a child. “We are here to remind you he is a human being,” NBC Miami reports he said.
Sierra pleaded guilty to the murders of all three victims in August. After hearing Chaidez’s testimony, the jury voted on Oct. 20 to recommend three death sentences — one for each victim.
NBC Miami reports that under Florida law, at least eight out of 12 jurors need to recommend the death penalty for it to be imposed. Eleven jurors recommended the death penalty for Machado’s murder, eight jurors recommended it for Daniela Padrino’s murder, and the jury unanimously agreed to recommend the death penalty for Julia Padrino’s murder.
A Spencer hearing will be held on Nov. 2, according to NBC Miami, and the judge will decide if Sierra will be sentenced to death or spend his life behind bars.
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