Mesa man to spend life in prison for murder of his pregnant wife

After asking the Maricopa County Superior Court to give him the maximum sentence in his case, a Mesa construction worker will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the killing of his pregnant wife.

Gustavo Alejandro Ruiz Lamar, 31, pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder on Jan. 9, admitting guilt in court for fatally stabbing Viri GonzalezSaavedra while she was three months pregnant in 2017.

On the day of the murder, Ruiz Lamar and Gonzalez-Saavedra’s three children, ages 1, 2 and 10, heard what happened and saw the aftermath of what he did to their mother as they escaped their home.

But it was their 10-year-old daughter who took it upon herself to call the police and hide her siblings during the violence.

At a sentencing hearing on Friday, their daughter told her story as Ruiz Lamar sobbed in his chair, his cuffed hands covering his face.

Through his lawyer, Ruiz Lamar asked the judge to give him the maximum sentence possible.

What happened?

On June 30, 2017, police got a call from a 10-year-old girl, crying about a fight between her mom and dad, telling them he pushed her down the stairs.

When police got to the Mesa apartment near Brown Road and Center Street, they found Gonzalez-Saavedra dead, riddled with stab wounds from her face and hands down to her swollen belly, according to court records.

Fifteen minutes after the child’s call, Lamar phoned police from a nearby Motel 6, crying and wanting to turn himself in.

Officers found Lamar in the Motel 6 parking lot with “large amounts of blood” covering his hands, according to records.

The fight started over Gonzalez-Saavedra wanting to do a science project with her kids, the records claimed.

Ruiz Lamar had been drinking that day and didn’t want her to do it. He burst into a fit of anger, according to Maricopa County prosecutor Catherine FergusonGilbert.

An MRI of Ruiz Lamar later showed that he had brain damage.

An expert psychologist described him as a person with severe mental health struggles and “in need of significant mental health intervention.”

The night of the killing, Ruiz Lamar threw some food and then grabbed two knives to stab Gonzalez-Saavedra, Ferguson-Gilbert explained in court.

In court, their daughter remembered hearing her baby sister crying and her brother knocking at her bedroom door.

“I remember opening the door and seeing my brother crying, and seeing half of a blade of a knife on the floor, the rest of it is honestly a blur,” she said.

Before calling the police, she also recalled hearing her mother.

“Her last words to me were, ‘I love you,’” she said.

Last words to the court

Gonzalez-Saavedra’s mother sat in court and cried while hearing her granddaughter recount that day.

Ruiz Lamar also cried, during his daughter’s and his own testimony.

“Believe me, If it was up to me, if I could turn time back, I’d be the dead one, and [Gonzalez-Saavedra] would be the one alive here today,” he said.

Then he spoke to his former motherin-law.

He told her he felt she was like a real mother to him. He thanked her for being there for him and caring for his children and asked for forgiveness.

“Three hearings ago you stood in front of the judge begging for an end to this case, and it tore my heart in half hearing everything you’d gone through,” he said. “I hope one day you can find some room in your heart to forgive me.”

Maricopa Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer sentenced Ruiz Lamar to two back-to-back prison life sentences.