A man who shot dead his ex-partner, six weeks after marrying another man, has been jailed for 24 years although a judge acknowledges he will likely die in prison from terminal cancer.
Juan Gonzalez was 76 years old and had never had any problems with the law when on May 20 last year he drove Thanh Ngoc Truong’s unit to St Albans with his registered shotgun, entered and shot him in the neck. killing her.
Gonzalez then fired a second shot at her ex-partner while lying on the kitchen floor and left her body to be discovered by her adult daughter.
Police arrived at the scene in St Albans in May last year after Juan Gonzalez shot and killed his former partner Thanh Ngoc Truong.
The murder came about two months after Truong, 48, ended their relationship and six weeks after she married another man, the Supreme Court heard on Thursday.
Gonzalez confessed to an ex-wife and a friend, closed his gun and turned himself in to police in two hours. He must now serve 17 years in prison before being eligible for parole, after pleading guilty to murder.
Judge Amanda Fox said it was “very likely, if not certain” that Gonzalez, now 77, would die in cancer prison. A surgeon this year advised that his life expectancy could be up to five years, but said his cruel crime had yet to be reported.
“This is another example of a man killing a woman, in circumstances where the woman has ended an intimate relationship, because she has found … reasons to feel harmed, or because she is jealous, or a combination of “Both,” Fox said. .
“Murder in these circumstances is a crime that deserves a severe punishment, regardless of when it is committed in the life of a criminal.”
Gonzalez and Truong were together for less than a year, but the judge found that he was jealous, controlling, and overprotective during the relationship, and suspected he was seeing someone else. He confronted the other man and warned him to stay away, according to the court.