Dad convicted of abuse in girl’s death
Jury also convicts on sexual assault
An Albuquerque man living in the South Valley was convicted Thursday of child abuse resulting in the death of his infant daughter, 28 days old at the time of her death Dec. 28, 2011.
Juan Galindo faces the possibility of three life sentences, plus three years, when he is sentenced March 12 before 2nd District Judge Jacqueline Flores.
The child, Amalia Sanchez, died of blunt force trauma to her head, but prosecutors alleged she also was sexually assaulted.
The jury, which heard eight days of testimony before returning a verdict Thursday afternoon, also convicted Galindo of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual penetration, both of which carry potential life sentences.
He was also convicted of one count of child abuse without great bodily harm; that count related to an older daughter, then 13, who was placed in a situation that endangered her life or health.
The defense called witnesses to show that Galindo was attempting to revive the child, not to harm her.
But in addition to a statement Galindo gave to police after paramedics finally were summoned in the early morning hours and the discovery the child was dead, jurors also saw multiple photos of the extent of her injuries. They saw her brain, a view of the inside of her head and tissue under the scalp with dark, reddish coloring where the injuries were most severe.
Through testimony of one of the officers, the jury saw a tiny “onesie,” a one-piece baby outfit with bloodstains in the groin area, the apparent result of Galindo putting a finger in her anus. Galindo told police he had done that to see if she was constipated, as she had been once before, but prosecutors said it was something else.
“The evidence was difficult to hear. The pictures were difficult to see,” Deputy District Attorney Lisa Trabaudo said as she began summing up the evidence Wednesday. “We’ll ask you to convict on all counts.”
In a taped statement with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office detective viewed by the jury, Galindo explained that he had heard the baby gurgling or choking and that she was turning blue when he went to her, but Trabaudo said there was no evidence of choking or aspiration and nothing was lodged in her trachea. And there was no evidence of constipation, she said.
And she pointed to evidence from a police lab analyst who found two sperm cells from a swab of the baby’s mouth. A defense DNA specialist later testified that the analyst hadn’t performed the necessary tests for a definitive identification of sperm cells, but Trabaudo noted the police technician had used a special stain on the sample that is diagnostic for sperm cells.
Defense attorney Jeff Buckels told jurors Galindo “didn’t hurt anybody. He was trying to save his daughter. It’s simple as that.” The state’s case, he said, was based on conjecture and speculation.
Trabaudo told the jury to take note of the delay in notifying police. He left the trailer after realizing she was dead and sat for three hours under the wooden steps, where an officer later found a baby blanket.
“He knew what he had done,” she told jurors. “He killed his daughter. He raped his daughter.”