A man was sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday for abducting and killing Sierra LaMar, a Northern California teenager who disappeared five years ago and whose remains have never been found.
The sentencing of Antolin Garcia-Torres followed weeks of testimony in the penalty phase of his murder trial. Shortly after the sentence was announced, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen told reporters the jury’s verdict made “it so that he will die in prison and will never take a breath as a free man.”
Garcia-Torres, 26, was found guilty May 9 following the 13-week trial. He was also convicted of trying to kidnap and carjack three south San Francisco Bay area women in 2009 in grocery store parking lots.
“Human justice can hold the guilty accountable but it cannot resurrect the dead,” Rosen said outside the San Jose courthouse. “There is no joy in this verdict, only mourning, in the death of a child who was murdered — a void that will forever ache and that can never be filled. May Sierra’s memory be a blessing for her family and our community.”
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