A New Yorker has been sentenced 20 years to life for lacing his children’s food with rat poison. It is believed that he has done so after he found out his ex-wife was seeing another man so he wanted to take revenge on her by poisoning his own children’s food, lacing their pizza with rat poison.
Leonardo Espinal a 49-year-old has been sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty last month for the murder of his 5 year old boy, Steward Espinal and attempted murder of his 7 year old daughter Mia Espinal.
Abreu, the mother of the kids said that her baby boy had been running around the apartment asking her to kiss him goodbye in the morning of November 6th, 2012. Her ex-husband Espinal then came over to babysit Steward and Mia.
She still remember kneeling down and kissing her beloved boy, little did she know what the day would turn out be like. The man who she shared her life with for decades, who fathered these two lovely kids would end up being the gruesome killer of their children.
That night of November 6th when Espinal was babysitting their kids at their stepmom’s University Heights apartment, he called Abreu with threats of coming suicide. Abreu was so horrified, that she immediately called the stepmother who then found Mia passed out in her own vomit on the couch while Espinal was locked in the bathroom with the maniac Steward.
The police then forced into the bathroom only to find the psycho Leonardo cradling unresponsive Steward in a water-filled tub.
The kids were rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital right away although Steward was not able to survive the poison and died the next morning.
It was later determined that Espinal fed both the kids and himself a pizza filled with rat poison.
People who knew the family closely said the motive behind horrific actions of Espinal was the recent breakup between his wife and him. Abreu and Espinal had been together for decades before she threw him out of the apartment 2 weeks before this horrific incident.
Espinal stood emotionless and did not utter a word during his sentencing. His lawyer Howard Levine claimed that he was remorseful for his actions.
