TORONTO – Two Mexican nationals accused of murdering 44-year-old Connie Valencia-Russo in July 2009 both pleaded guilty at a Toronto court house Friday.
Originally charged with first-degree murder, 26-year-old Juan Antonio Reyes pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and his 22-year-old wife Ana Laura Rodriguez to manslaughter.
Court heard Valencia-Russo hired the couple to do renovations on her home in May 2009.
She knew them because they lived in the same apartment unit as her ex-husband.
Not satisfied with the work they did, Valencia-Russo told them she didn’t plan to pay the couple the six to seven hundred dollars they were owed.
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On the day of Valencia-Russo’s death on July 7 2009, court heard she went to her ex’s apartment on Jane Street, where she was met by Reyes and Rodriguez and a heated argument broke out.
The couple assaulted Valencia-Russo and bound her with duct tape, taking her bank and credit cards, and forcing her to give up her pin number.
Then each took turns going to a nearby Bank of Montreal to make withdrawals, while Valencia-Russo was forcibly confined.
She eventually suffocated to death after duct tape was put over her nose and mouth.
Ana Rodriguez also visited a nearby dollar store twice to purchase a suitcase.
Valencia-Russo, the single mother of a 14-year-old boy she bore with city councillor Cesar Palacio, was found in that suitcase in the trunk of her car one day after bring reported missing.
After the murder, the couple fled to Mexico. They were arrested four months later and extradited back to Canada 10 months after the killing.
Reyes was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years. His wife was sentenced to 12 years in a penitentiary.
Justice Ian Nordheimer called Valencia-Russo’s murder a brutal and senseless crime resulting from an apparent desire to steal money.
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