Toy-chest killer dad gets life in prison (Santa Rosa, California)

Dad HONORIO PANTALEON stabbed the mother of his two children 68 times, then stuffed her body in a toy chest. The 5-year-old son and and a 2-year-old child were in the home at the time of the murder, with the son testifying at the recent trial.

So horrible. Murder is bad enough. But to subject young children to something so unspeakable, so traumatizing. And to their own mother....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/11/BA0Q1C04H9.DTL&tsp=1

Toy-chest killer gets life in prison
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 11, 2010

(02-11) 11:17 PST SANTA ROSA --

A Santa Rosa man was sentenced to multiple life terms Wednesday for fatally stabbing the mother of his two young children and stuffing her body in a toy chest before driving to Ukiah and trying to shoot her mother.

Superior Court Judge Ken Gnoss ordered Honorio Pantaleon, 32, to spend the rest of his life in prison.

A Sonoma County jury convicted Pantaleon in December of first-degree murder and the special circumstance of torture in the slaying of Patricia Barrales, 25. Her body was found May 11, 2008 - Mother's Day - in a closet in the couple's Montecito Avenue apartment, buried under toys in the toy chest.

The same jury determined that Pantaleon had been sane when he killed Barrales.

Pantaleon used two knives to stab Barrales 68 times while the couple's children, ages 5 and 2, were in the apartment.

The older child, a boy, testified via closed-circuit television during the trial to avoid being in the courtroom with his father, prosecutors said.

Barrales' body was discovered after her mother, Isabel, came to the apartment to look for her. The next day, Pantaleon drove to Isabel Barrales' home in Ukiah and tried to shoot her with a rifle. The gun didn't fire, so Pantaleon hit her in the head with it.

Police tracked Pantaleon down at a relative's home in Ukiah. Isabel Barrales was given custody of the children, who were unharmed.

Gnoss sentenced Pantaleon to life without the possibility of parole for Barrales' murder as well as a consecutive life term for trying to kill her mother. Pantaleon was sentenced to an additional 16 years and four months for child-abuse and weapons convictions.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/11/BA0Q1C04H9.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0fICBe8yj