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Mestizo sent to prison for life in housewife's horrific slaying
Laborer sent to prison for life in housewife's horrific slaying
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
NEW CITY, N.Y. -- A laborer who murdered a suburban housewife in her bedroom was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without parole after the widower tearfully told the court how the killer "beat, cut, raped, sodomized and strangled the greatest love of my life."
"How any human being could inflict so much pain is beyond my comprehension," said Daniel Nagle, husband of victim Mary Nagle and father of their two children. Looking at the killer, Douglas Herrera Castellanos, he said, "I hope that you wake up every single day and know that you ended your life on the same day you ended Mary's."
The sentencing came on what would have been the Nagles' 13th wedding anniversar
y.
Nagle, asking state Supreme Court Justice William Kelly to im pose the maximum sentence, spoke about the emotional troubles he and his children have encountered since the slaying in April 2005.
They visited his wife's grave Sunday for Mother's Day, he said, and his 7-year-old son asked, "Will we ever be okay? Will we ever be normal?"
His 9-year-old daughter, he said, asked him to "Tell the judge that Douglas is a bad man who took our mother from us."
Herrera was convicted last month of first-degree murder in the killing of Mary Nagle, 42, at her home in New City in April 2005. A Guatemalan immigrant working for a house-painting contractor, he had been assigned to power-wash the Nagles' backyard deck.
According to trial testimony, Herrera, 30, entered the unlocked house and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, where Nagle was changing into a tennis outfit. In an attack the medical examiner described as the worst she'd ever seen, Herrera raped, stabbed, bludge
oned and choked the fighting victim to death.
As he fled, Herrera allegedly used Nagle's cell phone to call several women, including one of her five sisters, and spoke lewdly about what had happened to her.
During the trial, several people wept as they viewed grisly photos of the body as the medical examiner described the gashes, hemorrhages and mutilations Nagle suffered.
Jurors also wept when an old photo of Nagle, showing her smiling and radiant, was projected onto a screen in the courtroom after Daniel Nagle testified about seeing her body at the morgue.
Herrera, whose visa expired five years ago, testified that he had par tied on beer and cocaine the night before and did not remember entering the house or killing Nagle. However, he said, he did recall waking up next to her bloody body.
The prosecutor and the family have criticized Herrera for showing no remorse. But Herrera said yesterday that he remembers crying after killing a chicken at the age of 7 and the fac
t that he hadn't shed a tear for the Nagle family "doesn't mean I don't feel in my heart all that has happened. I feel the pain the Nagle family has felt."
"I would do anything to change what happened," he said. "Forgive me."
After the court session, a composed Nagle was asked how he felt about the sentencing falling on his wedding anniversary.
"I think that Mary's watching us, making sure that we are okay, that the children are okay," he said. "This day, our anniversary, we'll remember that justice must be done."
The killing, in a quiet, tidy neighborhood, had exposed the danger of a common situation in the suburbs -- the wife home alone and a handyman on the scene, often with access to the house. Many area residents said they have changed their habits because of the killing.
With the state's death penalty ruled unconstitutional, the maxi mum sentence Herrera could get was life in prison without parole, and Rockland County District At torney Michael Bongiorno tol
d the judge that's what Herrera deserved.
"I have rarely seen a case with this level of brutality and sadism," he said.
Kelly imposed a sentence of life without parole plus 124 years for Herrera's 14 convictions including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, rape, robbery, burglary, engaging in a criminal sex act and aggravated criminal sex abuse.
Laborer sent to prison for life in housewife's horrific slaying
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
NEW CITY, N.Y. -- A laborer who murdered a suburban housewife in her bedroom was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without parole after the widower tearfully told the court how the killer "beat, cut, raped, sodomized and strangled the greatest love of my life."
"How any human being could inflict so much pain is beyond my comprehension," said Daniel Nagle, husband of victim Mary Nagle and father of their two children. Looking at the killer, Douglas Herrera Castellanos, he said, "I hope that you wake up every single day and know that you ended your life on the same day you ended Mary's."
The sentencing came on what would have been the Nagles' 13th wedding anniversar
y.
Nagle, asking state Supreme Court Justice William Kelly to im pose the maximum sentence, spoke about the emotional troubles he and his children have encountered since the slaying in April 2005.
They visited his wife's grave Sunday for Mother's Day, he said, and his 7-year-old son asked, "Will we ever be okay? Will we ever be normal?"
His 9-year-old daughter, he said, asked him to "Tell the judge that Douglas is a bad man who took our mother from us."
Herrera was convicted last month of first-degree murder in the killing of Mary Nagle, 42, at her home in New City in April 2005. A Guatemalan immigrant working for a house-painting contractor, he had been assigned to power-wash the Nagles' backyard deck.
According to trial testimony, Herrera, 30, entered the unlocked house and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, where Nagle was changing into a tennis outfit. In an attack the medical examiner described as the worst she'd ever seen, Herrera raped, stabbed, bludge
oned and choked the fighting victim to death.
As he fled, Herrera allegedly used Nagle's cell phone to call several women, including one of her five sisters, and spoke lewdly about what had happened to her.
During the trial, several people wept as they viewed grisly photos of the body as the medical examiner described the gashes, hemorrhages and mutilations Nagle suffered.
Jurors also wept when an old photo of Nagle, showing her smiling and radiant, was projected onto a screen in the courtroom after Daniel Nagle testified about seeing her body at the morgue.
Herrera, whose visa expired five years ago, testified that he had par tied on beer and cocaine the night before and did not remember entering the house or killing Nagle. However, he said, he did recall waking up next to her bloody body.
The prosecutor and the family have criticized Herrera for showing no remorse. But Herrera said yesterday that he remembers crying after killing a chicken at the age of 7 and the fac
t that he hadn't shed a tear for the Nagle family "doesn't mean I don't feel in my heart all that has happened. I feel the pain the Nagle family has felt."
"I would do anything to change what happened," he said. "Forgive me."
After the court session, a composed Nagle was asked how he felt about the sentencing falling on his wedding anniversary.
"I think that Mary's watching us, making sure that we are okay, that the children are okay," he said. "This day, our anniversary, we'll remember that justice must be done."
The killing, in a quiet, tidy neighborhood, had exposed the danger of a common situation in the suburbs -- the wife home alone and a handyman on the scene, often with access to the house. Many area residents said they have changed their habits because of the killing.
With the state's death penalty ruled unconstitutional, the maxi mum sentence Herrera could get was life in prison without parole, and Rockland County District At torney Michael Bongiorno tol
d the judge that's what Herrera deserved.
"I have rarely seen a case with this level of brutality and sadism," he said.
Kelly imposed a sentence of life without parole plus 124 years for Herrera's 14 convictions including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, rape, robbery, burglary, engaging in a criminal sex act and aggravated criminal sex abuse.