Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley today announced a first-degree murder conviction in the strangulation and fatal stabbing of 29-year-old Melissa Santiago, a mother of four, in her Dorchester home last year.

A Suffolk Superior Court Jury found JOSE TORRES (D.O.B. 11/13/81) guilty of murdering Santiago in the course of a March 8, 2008, argument. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Fahey sentenced Torres to the mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Melissa’s murder shocked the conscience, not just for its brutality but for the pain it caused in its wake,” Conley said. “This defendant not only took a life – he took a mother from four young children who will carry the pain of her loss forever.”

During five days of testimony, Suffolk prosecutors introduced evidence and testimony to show that Torres strangled Santiago with an electrical cord, then slashed her throat as she lay on the floor of the home she had opened to him just weeks earlier. All the victim’s children were home at the time of the incident, and the oldest – ages 3, 5, and 6 at the time – found her bloody remains the next morning.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that any person, no matter how evil, would commit that crime on a mother and leave it to be discovered by her children,” Conley said.

Boston Police homicide detectives located Torres early the next afternoon. In the course of a post-Miranda, tape-recorded interview, Torres denied killing Santiago but acknowledged that the two had argued and that she had scratched his face.

Maria Dickerson, a family friend who has taken legal custody of the victim’s children, addressed the court prior to sentencing.

“Jose, you have caused them the worst pain they will ever know – the death of their mother,” she said.

Assistant District Attorney David Deakin, chief of Conley’s Family Protection and Sexual Assault Bureau, prosecuted the case. Attorney Jeffrey Karp represented the defendant. Judge Elizabeth Fahey presided.