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.” 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. 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.”
