A Los Angeles County judge sentenced a 43-year-old man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his pregnant wife in 2018.
The jury also convicted Octavio Curiel Martinez of several other charges, including attempted murder of his father, corporal injury to a spouse and three misdemeanor counts of child endangerment involving the couple's two children and his stepson.
Jurors also confirmed prosecutors' special allegation of multiple murders and that he used and discharged a handgun.
Before killing his pregnant wife Ana Maria Nunez in 2018, prosecutors said Curiel Martinez beat his wife in December 2016 and December 2017, including an attack that left unconcsious while three children were home. The LA County District Attorney's Office added that he shot at his father's car as he drove away a month before his wife's murder.
Curiel Martinez fled the country following his wife's murder, but was apprehended by Mexican police a little more than 6 months later.
He's been in custody since March 2019.
During the trial, prosecutors said Curiel Martinez killed his wife because he believed her pregnancy was the result of an affair between Nunez and his father. Prosecutors said his wife and his father denied the alleged affair several times and that no family members agreed with Curiel Martinez's belief about the suspected affair.
Curiel Martinez's attorneys tried to persuade the jury to acquit their client of first-degree murder, in part, through testimony that he had been using methamphetamine for about six years and became more erratic over time.
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