Arizona man who killed ex-girlfriend while she slept handed long prison sentence
PHOENIX - A Glendale man who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend while she slept will spend quite some time behind bars for what he did.
Court documents provided by the County Attorney's Office on July 8 show that Victoriano Blas Alejo was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for second-degree murder, and 7.5 years for assault. Both sentences are to be served consecutively.
We first covered the case in 2023. At the time, police said the deadly incident happened on July 15 at a home near 87th Avenue and Camelback Road. The victim, 43-year-old Alma Escobar, was rushed to a hospital where she later died. Court documents state that Alejo admitted to stabbing Escobar because she started dating another person.
"He felt that if she was not going to be in a relationship with him, then he would not allow her to be in any relationship," court documents at the time read. "He consciously made the decision to stab [Escobar], intending to kill her and end her life."
"This defendant waited to attack at the precise moment when the victim couldn’t defend herself," wrote County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, in her 2024 statement. "While the sentence imposed won’t take away the pain of losing a loved one, it does bring justice to the family members who witnessed their mother’s murder."