After a two-week trial, a Hays County jury on Thursday convicted of capital murder a 27-year-old woman accused of stabbing and beheading her 5-year-old daughter, prosecutors said.
Krystle Concepcion Villanueva was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Villanueva’s defense team conceded Villanueva had killed her daughter and stabbed the child’s grandfather, but urged the jury to find her not guilty by reason of insanity, prosecutors said. Jurors rejected that defense.
“Ms. Villanueva claimed that, at the time of the attacks, she had been under the delusional belief that her daughter and her father-in-law had been replaced by clones and had to be killed to bring back her real family members,” Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau said in a statement. “While evidence indicated that Ms. Villanueva had been treated previously for mental problems, the prosecution pointed out that all such treatment coincided with prior drug abuse.”
Blood testing after her arrest only revealed the presence of alcohol and marijuana in her system, according to information from prosecutors.
Villanueva was arrested Jan. 5, 2017, after police were called to her Kyle home, where she lived with her daughter Giovanna Hernandez, the girl’s father and his parents.
The girl’s grandfather called 911 to report that Villanueva had attacked him without warning from behind, stabbing him in the back and head, before he was able to get out of the house, prosecutors said. After police learned from the grandfather that Villanueva was still in the house with her 5 year-old daughter, SWAT teams and crisis negotiators arrived at the scene.
Villanueva also called 911 from inside the house. As police were heading to surround the house, Villanueva told the 911 operator that she had killed her daughter because “she asked for cereal” and then stabbed her father-in-law, prosecutors said.
“When SWAT operators learned that the child may have been injured or killed, they broke into the home, finding Villanueva nude in the front room, apparently freshly showered,” prosecutors said in a statement. “She was restrained and taken into custody.”
The SWAT team found the child’s body in a bedroom. Investigators had previously only stated to media that the girl’s body had been “mutilated.” The trial was the first time investigators shared publicly additional details.
Jurors found Villanueva guilty of capital murder of a child younger than 10, as well as guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against the grandfather. District Judge Bill Henry, who presided over the case, sentenced her to life in prison without parole.
“A case like this leaves an unforgettable mark on everyone involved, especially the child’s family,” Mau said in his statement. “Every law enforcement member who worked on this case will forever be traumatized by what Ms. Villanueva did to her innocent daughter. I commend all the investigators and officers who endured this horror with calm professionalism so that justice could be done.”
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