ESCONDIDO — Two teenage girls were both sentenced to more than 17 years in state prison on Sept. 16 for the brutal attempted murder of their fellow eighth-grader.
Karina Amador, 15, was sentenced to 18 years and four months by Vista Judge Runston Maino.
Jovana Gudino, also 15, was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison.
In July both girls admitting to attacking the victim in her own home on May 3, 2009.
Amador pleaded guilty to attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary charges, according to previous reports.
Gudino pleaded guilty to attempted murder, burglary and trying to dissuade a witness.
Amador said to authorities, in earlier reports, that a boy had been the reason for their actions.
“This was a brutal, savage senseless act,” prosecutor Rachel Solov said after the sentencing.
She said the victim was stabbed five to six times near vital organs and had several slash marks across her back.
The victim spoke to a courtroom filled with family and many peers of the three Escondido teenagers.
“I literally tried to be Karina’s friend and she stabbed me in the back,” she said.
At a hearing earlier this year, according to reports, the victim, now 15, included in her testimony that the defendants stabbed her five times in the back, carved her back and beat her in the head with her home phone.
The victim’s mother described how her only child’s face was unrecognizable after the attack.
Other family members also addressed the court and gave chilling details that included a bloody scene and the condition of the house after the attack.
The accused teen attackers stood side by side, arms intertwined as they gave their statements from behind glass in the courtroom.
“I’m not a cold-hearted criminal,” Amador said to the court. She quoted Bible verses 1 to 6 from Matthew 7 and said she thinks the sentence of 18 years and four months is harsh and excessive.
Gudino said the experience has changed her for the better.
“All I have to say is sorry, but sorry isn’t enough,” she said.
Both teenagers were 14 when the crimes were committed, but charged as adults due to the heinous acts of the crime, which included torture.
Prosecutors dropped the torture charge as part of the plea bargain, for which the charge has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Solov said that Amador played a slightly larger role in the crimes, which is why her sentence carries an additional year.
At a hearing last December, according to City News Service, Judge Theodore Weathers said Amador orchestrated and executed the plan to attack the 14-year-old victim in her own home.
A third offender in the case is a male who was sentenced separately in juvenile court.
previous post
