California man who killed 2 girlfriends 2 weeks apart gets death sentence

California man who killed 2 girlfriends gets death

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A judge has sentenced a California man to death for murdering a girlfriend who refused to help him dispose of another girlfriend’s body.

Santiago Martinez of Long Beach was sentenced Tuesday in Superior Court to die by lethal injection

A jury last month recommended death for the 28-year-old Martinez, who was convicted for the 2003 killing of Myra Orozco. A previous jury deadlocked over the penalty.

Orozco, a 24-year-old Long Beach resident, was stabbed and slashed nearly 30 times, pushed from a car and run over. Prosecutors say she was killed because she refused to help Martinez dump the body of a woman he had killed two weeks earlier.

Martinez already is serving 52 years to life for the murder of Christina Wilkerson, who was stabbed 20 times and shot.