A man convicted of killing his girlfriend and their unborn child was sentenced to death Friday afternoon.
"Therefore, Jose Soto-Escalera, I hereby sentence you to death for the first-degree murder of Tanya Wise. I also independently sentence you to death for the first-degree murder of her unborn child," Judge Lawrence Mirman said in court on Friday.
DNA Evidence Confirmed Soto-Escalera Was the Father of the Unborn Child
Last month, Soto-Escalera was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said that Soto-Escalera killed Wise so his wife would not find out that he and the victim were involved in a relationship. DNA evidence confirmed Soto-Escalera was the unborn baby's father.
Wise's body was found abandoned on a country road on Aug. 24, 2018. According to prosecutors, her head was bashed in and her throat was cut. Either injury would have been fatal. As police investigated her murder, they found several communications between her and the married Soto-Escalera, whose wife was not aware that her husband had an affair with the younger woman.
Soto-Escalera Had Given Wise Money to Get an Abortion but She Gave it to Another Man
Wise had told Soto-Escalera that she was pregnant with his child and needed money for an abortion. A witness who was with Wise when she made the request told police that Wise said "if she used Jose's wife against him, she could get anything she wanted."
Heagreed to give Wise $500 for the procedure, which she did not get. Instead, police said she gave the money to another man. This made Soto-Escalera "mad because Wise 'played him,'" and he started asking around about a "dirty gun."
Cellphone records put Soto-Escalera at the location where Wise was later found. Also found on his phone were Google searches for "dead body in woods" and "wooded area dead body" that were pinpointed to the time period before Wise's body was found. Soto-Escalera, who was 41 years old at the time of the killing, was arrested 28 days after Wise's body was discovered.
