Wrapping an electrical cord around Melissa Santiago’s neck and pulling it tight wasn’t enough for JOSE TORRES (D.O.B. 11/13/81), the top domestic violence prosecutor in Suffolk County told a Superior Court jury today, so he grabbed a knife and slashed the 29-year-old woman’s throat.
“He strangled her to death and as she struggled to breathe, as she struggled to live, he picked up a knife and slit her throat,” said Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, chief of Suffolk DA Daniel F. Conley’s Family Protection and Sexual Assault Bureau. “You now know what happened to Melissa Santiago, how she was brutally murdered by this man … her boyfriend of three weeks.”
Deakin spoke during closing arguments after five days of testimony in Torres’ trial for first-degree murder. Suffolk prosecutors allege that Torres was in a rage stemming from an argument when he strangled and stabbed Santiago to death in the Dorchester apartment he had briefly shared with the woman and her four children – two of whom were home at the time of the incident and found their mother’s remains the next morning.
At least one of those children told the downstairs neighbor that “Mommy was dead and daddy had killed her,” Deakin said; the children often referred to Torres as “daddy” or “Jose,” Deakin explained. The boys told investigators that they witnessed the defendant pull Santiago’s hair and push her onto a table. Torres allegedly sent the children to bed, telling them, “She’s OK, she’s just sleeping. Go to bed.”
Immediately following the murder, Torres “poured bleach on Melissa Santiago to try to eliminate DNA evidence,” Deakin said. “He poured the bleach on her skin after she had died in a desperate attempt to clean up the scene.”
After using the victim’s bathroom to wash her blood off of his own body, prosecutors allege, Torres gathered his belongings into a duffel bag and backpack and walked away from the scene.
Torres allegedly made his way to a friend’s home and was present when that friend learned through a phone call of Santiago’s murder. The friend became hysterical, Deakin said, but Torres simply placed his head in his hands and said nothing.
“He didn’t ask any questions, ladies and gentlemen, because he already knew the horrible truth,” Deakin said.
Boston Police homicide detectives located Torres early the next day. Torres agreed to participate in a tape-recorded interview, after which he was placed under arrest. Deakin urged jurors to listen to Torres’ oscillation between laughter and anger during the interview, but also to the nature of his statements.
“More than his tone, listen to the substance of what he had to say; the lies, inconsistencies and implausibility of what he says.”
Torres was “desperately searching for excuses, rationalizations,” Deakin told jurors. “He claims that Melissa scratched him when he went to give her a hug,” Deakin said of an injury he is believed to have sustained during the murder. Torres allegedly told police that it is a “pet peeve when my face is disrespected.”
Repeating the defendant’s statement a second time, Deakin put a crime scene photo on a large screen and pointed to it. “Scratches could not justify this level of brutality,” he told jurors.
Scientific and forensic evidence showed that Santiago’s blood was found on the Torres’s clothes, his footwear, and his duffel bag. A bloody footprint left at the scene was consistent in size and tread pattern in the sandals that the defendant was wearing on the night of the murder.
“He killed her with two separate weapons, left her face down on the floor, half-clothed for her children to find,” Deakin said. “Every single piece of credible evidence points in one and only one direction. That man murdered Melissa Santiago in cold blood …. Do not let him get away with that.”
Following closing arguments by Deakin and defense attorney Jeffrey Karp, Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Fahey instructed jurors on the relevant law. If they do not reach a unanimous verdict by the close of court today, they will return to courtroom 815 of Suffolk Superior Court tomorrow at 9:00.
