“Thirty years in prison for man who murdered his partner in Santiago”

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At the request of the Public Ministry, a court sentenced a man to the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for murdering his partner due to cranial trauma and asphyxiation by strangulation, in an incident that occurred in the Santiago province in 2024.

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José Manuel Matos Vásquez must serve the sentence at the Rafey Men’s Correction and Rehabilitation Center, in the Santiago province, and pay compensation of RD$8.0 million to the relatives of the victim Jennifer Milagros Peña.

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The file states that both had a 19-year relationship and that during that time, on several occasions, the defendant physically and verbally assaulted the victim and constantly threatened her with death in the presence of her relatives.

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On December 31, 2024, he caused her death in the home they shared, located on El Número Street, in the La Cambronal sector of Santiago. After committing the crime, Matos Vásquez sat down to socialize with a group of people from that community.

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A sister of Peña who saw the now-convicted man at the scene asked him about her relative, to which he replied that his partner had gone to the Pekín sector to visit her children.

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At that moment, the sister of the now-deceased tried to contact her, and, upon receiving no response, she went to her residence, where she found the lifeless body, so she proceeded to call the 9-1-1 National Emergency and Security Attention System.

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The next day, Matos Vásquez went to the Mari López police station where he confessed that he had killed his partner, and was arrested immediately.

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The autopsy report performed by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif) establishes that the cause of Peña’s death was a violent death, of a forensic homicidal etiology.

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The facts were investigated by the public prosecutor Ada Reyes.

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Litigating prosecutor Reyna Jiménez represented the Public Ministry in the proceedings where judges Juan Carlos Colón, Claribel Mateo, and Gladys de los Santos, of the First Collegiate Court of Santiago, handed down the sentence upon determining that Matos Vásquez violated articles 295, 304, 309-2, and 309-3, literals B, C, and D, of the Dominican Penal Code.

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