News

Man receives 111-year prison sentence for transgender woman’s murder

by Michael K. Lavers
National News Editor
Monday Feb 7, 2011
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Ashley Santiago
Ashley Santiago  (Source:PrimeraHora.com)

A Puerto Rican man who confessed to murdering a transgender woman in her Corozal home received a 111-year prison sentence on Monday, Feb. 7.

Primera Hora reported Judge Jesús Peluyera imposed the sentence upon Emanuel Adorno Ayala, who confessed to stabbing Ashley Santiago more than a dozen times in April 2010. Primera Hora further reported Santiago’s mother, Carmen Ocasio, tearfully said "this pain will last for the rest of my life" after Peluyera sentenced Ayala.

As EDGE previously reported, Santiago’s murder came roughly five months after Juan A. Martínez Matos brutally murdered gay teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado near Caguas. Martínez is serving a 99-year prison sentence for the crime.

Based in Washington, D.C., Michael K. Lavers has appeared in the New York Times, BBC, WNYC, Huffington Post, Village Voice, Advocate and other mainstream and LGBT media outlets. He is an unapologetic political junkie who thoroughly enjoys living inside the Beltway.

Comments

  • Anonymous, 2011-02-07 23:30:30

    Umm... The Edge needs to do some fact checking on this case because when I look at the Google Spanish to English translation of the referenced website, it looks to me that Ashley was no angel and our convict was shot first in an attempt to steal his automobile... Also, it seems vaguely possible that our convict may have also been a member of the LGBT community? Is Google-Translator way off base or has the Edge failed to give us all the facts?


  • Parker, 2011-02-08 09:00:47

    I don’t think it is edge trying to leave out all the facts on purpose but they do in some cases seem to skew things one way (not all the time). I mean there is bad reporting that is bias on the extreme conservative side and so there is bad reporting here on this side aswell.


  • angeladallara, 2011-02-08 13:12:18

    I speak Spanish and the article doesn’t say that. It says that the murderer was convicted of killing his former brother-in-law a few weeks before murdering Ashley. At that time, he had asked for the forgiveness of his former partner’s family. This time, he made no comments and asked for no forgiveness when given his sentence. The incident with his former brother-in-law had occurred in April 2010, when Emanuel shot him with the intention of stealing his car. So yes--Google Translator must be ridiculously off-base.


  • Anonymous, 2011-02-08 13:29:16

    Not only is Google Translator really confusing, but also the story (on the spanish website) is very convoluted... They should break this story into 3 separate dramas... And use the real people’s names instead of "victim" and "murderer" and "convict"... because those descriptors could probably be used for more than one person in this story...


  • Anonymous, 2011-02-10 13:36:01

    In this case EDGE is correct. I have been following this article with the local news paper. Yes... some facts were left out but much irrelevant since they are just giving you a followup from the article. This happen last year.


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