Man Given 30 Years in Fatal Beating of Boy
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POMONA — An El Monte man who beat his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son to death for wetting his pants was sentenced Friday to 30 years to life in prison.
Pomona Superior Court Judge Robert W. Armstrong imposed the term on Jose Manuel Torres, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the Jan. 3, 1998, slaying of Miguel Angel Grajales.
“Any time a 3-year-old is killed, it’s a very emotional case--we think the sentence imposed by the judge today is just and matches the gravity of the crime,” said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.
Torres used his fist to fracture the boy’s skull, then carried the child from a bathroom--where he had wet his pants--to a bedroom in the Magnolia Avenue home they shared with the boy’s mother, Rosalinda Grajales.
When paramedics went to the house in response to a relative’s 911 call, they found the boy unconscious. He was pronounced dead at El Monte Community Hospital.
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