LOS ANGELES — A Bell woman entered a no contest plea for killing her 64-year-old grandmother and then fleeing to Mexico with her children.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa said Sarah Paula Montoya, 27, entered the plea to one count of voluntary manslaughter and three counts of kidnapping.
Montoya was immediately sentenced to 26 years in state prison.
On July 18, 2016, Sarah Paula Montoya strangled Paula Montoya. The victim’s body was found three days later in her bathroom, wrapped in plastic and a blanket, by Los Angeles County sheriff deputies conducting a welfare check, according to court testimony.
Sarah Montoya then fled the country with her three children, ages 1 to 9 years old, without the father’s permission, the prosecutor said. According to evidence presented in court, the defendant killed her grandmother because the victim did not want her or her boyfriend to be at her house anymore.
The case was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
