Local Texas News: Jury Rules That Stiletto Killer Did Not Act Out of Passion
A Texas woman has been sentenced to life in prison for stabbing her boyfriend with the 5-1/2-inch heel on her shoe.
Ana Trujillo, 45, was convicted of the crime Tuesday that occurred after a wild night out last year.
Trujillo allegedly hit University of Houston professor Stefan Andersson two dozen times in the face and head with the shoe. She said he had a shoe fetish and bumper sticker that says "I Love Stillettos".
It only took two hours to convict Trujillo, and the jury also decided her penalty Friday. The biggest question was whether or not Trujillo acted in passion.
"Women who commit violent homicides are a very small percentage of the criminal justice system, and the statutory maximum comes down significantly if it's found to be a crime of passion," Sandra Guerra Thompson, the director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center, said.
If her actions were caused by passion, Trujillo would have seen 20 years or less in prison.
Witnesses said that she gets violent when she is drinking, which she was during last year's altercation.
"I have problems expressing myself," Trujillo told jurors after taking the stand in the penalty phase of the trial.
Still, despite over six hours of emotional testimony by Trujillo herself, the jury found she did not act on passion and that she should be held in prison for life.
Trujillo can appeal, but unless the conviction is overturned, her life sentence will remain.
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