Illegal immigrant gets life in prison for murdering Bethesda woman
By: Elinor Flynn
Examiner Staff Writer
August 14, 2009
A 34-year-old illegal immigrant convicted of murdering a 63-year-old Bethesda woman and hogtying and robbing three other widows will go to prison for life without parole, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge decided.
Before delivering the sentence Thursday, Judge Michael D. Mason emphasized Jose Garcia-Perlera's deliberate selection of his victims, his apparent "pleasure and satisfaction in inflicting pain" and "callous disregard for life" as he left four elderly women for dead during his yearlong string of assaults and robberies.
"He was a deliberate planner. He worked at my house for six days, a year and a half before [he attacked]," said 79-year-old Ann Wolfe, who hired Garcia-Perlera as an electrician. "He remembered me and stalked me. He is a very, very dangerous man."
Wolfe and another woman who was hogtied and robbed implored Mason to put the El Salvadorian immigrant behind bars for life.
Four relatives also spoke and shared photographs of 63-year-old Mary Havenstein, who was killed by Garcia-Perlera at her Bethesda home in September 2008. Garcia-Perlera attacked Havenstein outside her bedroom and beat her so badly that her brain started bleeding, before binding and gagging her. Havenstein's niece found her dead two days later.
"She hosted everything at ... the family home. It was always open," said Bob Eliott, Havenstein's son-in-law. "Today there is a deadbolt on that door. It is no longer a happy place."
Havenstein's niece Mary Phillips called her aunt the "grande dame" of the family and noted her independence, continuing to live alone after she was widowed.
In response, Garcia-Perlera's attorney, Samuel Delgado, told the court he felt in an "awkward" position because his client continued to defend his innocence.
"He was a thief. Nothing more, nothing less. But certainly not a murderer," Delgado said.
"Yes, these were extraordinary women who suffered. But not at his hands," he added, speaking on behalf of Garcia-Perlera.
During Garcia-Perlera's trial in May, the jury deliberated less than three hours before declaring him guilty.
The hogtying, robberies and murder raised alarm throughout tony Bethesda for a year starting with the first attack in the fall of 2007.
Officials reported that more than 700 people attended one community meeting held after the assaults.
"It would not be an exaggeration to say that this man conducted a reign of terror for over a year," said John McCarthy, Montgomery County state's attorney. "And it's a miracle only Mrs. Havenstein died."
