Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
MONTCO COURTS Verdict: Upper Darby man convicted of killing girlfriend on Lower Providence trail
Freddy MendietaPando sentenced to life imprisonment
A jury determined an Upper Darby man acted with intent when he fatally stabbed his estranged girlfriend while they met on a Montgomery County trail in Lower Providence to discuss their disintegrating relationship.
Freddy Remigio Mendieta-Pando, 23, of the 200 block of Copley Road, was convicted on Wednesday of charges of first-degree murder, which is an intentional killing, and possessing an instrument of crime in connection with the Sept. 11, 2021, fatal stabbing of his former partner, 23-year-old Karina Torres, along a section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Lower Providence, Montgomery County.
With one of the swiftest verdicts ever reached in Montgomery County, the jury of seven men and five women deliberated just 25 minutes before announcing the decision.
The jury also convicted Mendieta-Pando of charges of strangulation, simple assault and terroristic threats in connection with a domestic assault of Torres that occurred at their Upper Darby home on July 9, 2021, just two months before the killing. That case was folded into the homicide case for the jury’s consideration.
“This is a man who promised to kill the victim in this case. He strangled her. She got a protection from abuse order against him but the words ‘Stay Away’ were not enough for him and he took a knife and stabbed her to death,” District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said after the verdict was announced.
“We are always concerned when someone is willing to strangle someone. They are seven times more likely to die at the hands of the perpetrator. This is a clear example of one of those cases. If anyone is in this type of relationship we pray that they go get help, they go to one of our domestic violence shelters and they stay away from somebody who would commit an awful crime like this,” Steele added.
Mendieta-Pando showed no outward reaction to the verdict.
Judge William R. Carpenter immediately sentenced Mendieta-Pando to life imprisonment, the mandatory term for a conviction of first-degree murder.
During the three-day trial, Steele and co-prosecutor Caitlin Wilenchik sought the first-degree murder conviction, arguing Mendieta-Pando had fully formed the intent to kill Torres.
“He used a deadly weapon, a knife, on a vital part of Karina Torres at least six times. This case is about the defendant’s control of Karina Torres. This case is about him silencing Karina Torres. He silences her by stabbing her,” Steele argued during his closing statement to the jury.
An autopsy determined Torres, who shared a 4-year-old son with Mendieta-Pando, died as a result of multiple stab wounds and the manner of death was ruled homicide.
A coroner testified Torres sustained two stab wounds to the abdomen and one to the right flank.
Because Torres’s body wasn’t located until five days after the killing and was in a state of decomposition, prosecutors relied on a forensic anthropologist who examined the skeletal remains and who testified Torres also suffered a stab wound to the breastbone and two wounds that struck the fourth rib on the left and right sides of her body.
“This one penetrated with such force that it went into the bone,” Steele argued to the jury while pointing to an area on a skeleton that he used for demonstrative purposes during the trial.
Steele argued that when Mendieta-Pando dragged Torres 28 feet off the trail and hid her body in the brush he ensured that she could not get help.
“That shows his intent for her to die,” Steele said.
While defense lawyers Andres Jalon and Christian Colon didn’t dispute that Mendieta-Pando killed Torres, they suggested it occurred when MendietaPando lost control of his emotions during a struggle over a knife that Torres brandished and that the killing was not intentional but more akin to a third-degree murder charge, a killing with malice, a wickedness of disposition or hardness of heart.
“When Miss Torres pulls out that knife they both lose control. This whole struggle is third-degree murder. This got out of control. He doesn’t know what to do,” Jalon argued during his closing statement.
When Mendieta-Pando stepped into the witness box on Wednesday he testified he didn’t intend to kill Torres. MendietaPando claimed he and Torres were discussing their relationship and the custody of their child and Torres threatened to “take my son away.”
“She wanted to take my son away and she wanted everything that was opposite of what I wanted. I told her I didn’t agree that she was going to take my son,” Mendieta-Pando told jurors, adding an argument ensued.
Jalon and Colon argued that Mendieta-Pando feared his last name would be taken from his child.
“That is a huge, huge concern to him given his culture,” Jalon argued on behalf of Mendieta-Pando, a native of Ecuador who came to live in the U.S. in April 2020.
Mendieta-Pando claimed that when he was a few steps in front of Torres while walking along the trail, she brandished a knife.
“I turned a little bit and I saw that she had a knife and she was going to plunge it into my back,” said Mendieta-Pando. “I reacted poorly and I grabbed her hand…that’s when everything happened. We were struggling back and forth over the knife. It all happened so fast. It all happened so quickly.
“I stabbed her with the knife. We were struggling back and forth,” said Mendieta-Pando, who didn’t refute evidence that showed Torres was stabbed at least six times.
At the time of the slaying, Mendieta-Pando was awaiting trial in Delaware County on charges he assaulted and strangled Torres during a domestic abuse incident in July 2021.
According to testimony, on July 9, Mendieta-Pando was charged with strangulation, simple assault, terroristic threats and harassment by Upper Darby police after a domestic incident at the Copley Road residence during which he strangled and punched Torres in the face.