Name: Jose “Lalo” Eduardo Arredondo
Victim: Katherine Cardenas, two
Age at time of murder: 16
Crime location: Laredo
Crime date: September 5, 2009
Crimes: Kidnapping, abduction, rape, child cruelty, & murder
Murder method: Beating and strangulation
Murder motivation: He was mad at Katherine’s mother for turning down his advances for sex
Convictions: Capital murder, aggravated sexual assault, & aggravated kidnapping
Sentence: Life with parole
Incarceration status: Incarcerated at the John M. Wynne Unit (WY) and eligible for parole on April 1, 2050
Summary
Arredondo became enraged at Katherine’s mother Norma after she turned down his advances for sex. He then kidnapped two-year-old Katherine in the early morning hours of September 5, 2009. Arredondo raped the toddler and murdered her by beating and strangling her. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Details
Killer of 2-year-old gets four life sentences
By Jason BuchThursday, April 5, 2012
A Laredo judge has given a teenager four life sentences for raping and murdering a 2-year-old girl.
Jose Eduardo Arredondo, 18, was sentenced Tuesday in the 2009 killing of Katherine Cardenas. The details of the murder horrified residents in the border city.
“She was snatched from her home between 4 and 5 in the morning and she was taken to the northeast corner of the property behind a wooden shed, where … she was brutally raped and beat and then strangled to the point of death,” said Webb County District Attorney Isidro “Chilo” Alaniz, who prosecuted the case.
A jury earlier Tuesday convicted Arredondo on one count of capital murder, two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of aggravated kidnapping. District Judge Joe Lopez gave Arredondo life on all counts, and stacked the two aggravated sexual assault sentences. Arredondo won’t be eligible for parole for at least 70 years.
Arredondo, who was 16 at the time, had befriended Norma Patricia Olguin, a 26-year-old mother of 7 children who lived with her sister and teenage nephews, Alaniz said.
On more than one occasion, Arredondo and Olguin had sex, Alaniz said, but after a night of partying, she turned down his advances in the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 2009. Enraged and high on a cocktail of drugs, Arredondo kidnapped and raped Olguin’s youngest child, Alaniz said.
Shortly after, Arredondo fled to Mexico, but he was caught and returned to the U.S. in October 2009. DNA evidence linked blood on Arredondo’s jeans to his victim, and DNA collected from her clothing was linked to Arredondo, Alaniz said.
Olguin, a Mexican citizen who had legal permanent residency, was convicted of child abandonment, served two years in prison, lost custody of her children and was deported, Alaniz said. She came to the U.S. to testify in the trial and returned to Mexico on Tuesday.
Arredondo’s defense attorney J. Eduardo Peña said he argued that there was no way to prove how the DNA ended up on the clothes, and that someone else could have raped and killed the child. A confession by Arredondo in a recorded phone call likely was false, Peña said, because two psychologists testified the teen suffered from “hallucinations, delusions and was out of touch with reality.”
Arredondo was certified as an adult, but because he was a juvenile at the time of the offense he was not eligible for the death penalty or life without parole. Peña said he’ll be appealing the conviction and the sentence, which he said amounts to life in prison.Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Laredo-teen-receives-multiple-life-sentences-in-3459790.php#ixzz1rDOIqmsI
Is Life Without Parole For Juveniles Cruel And Unusual?
Murder of Katherine Cardenas
In the early morning hours of September 5, 2009, in Laredo, Texas, Jose “Lalo” Arredondo, 16, kidnapped two-year-old Katherine Cardenas from her home after becoming enraged when the girl’s mother turned down his advances for sex. He took the child to a property behind a shed and raped her and beat and strangled her to death.
