Craig J. Charron, who broke into his estranged girlfriend’s Huntington Seaside condominium and fatally stabbed her on the day she modified the locks to maintain him out, was sentenced Friday to 26 years to life in jail.
Laura Sardinha, 25, had been pursuing a web based psychology diploma with the hope of counseling ladies in abusive relationships. She had been making an attempt to flee her relationship with Charron, who had perforated her eardrum in an earlier assault, and she or he had taken out a restraining order in opposition to him.
On Friday, three months after a jury convicted Charron of first-degree homicide for her September 2020 dying, Orange County Superior Court docket Choose Michael Cassidy referred to as it a “mindless and brutal” crime and gave him the utmost sentence allowed by legislation.
“All Laura needed was to be freed from the abuse and the torment,” the sufferer’s mom, Marie Sardinha, instructed the choose. “This man shouldn’t be out in society. He ought to by no means be let loose.”
The sufferer’s brother, Shawn Sardinha, mentioned he had struggled to search out causes to stay after his sister’s dying.
“I now give updates of my life to a blue vase,” he mentioned.
At trial, Charron, 39, described himself as an Air Power veteran and former fight medic with a 100% incapacity score. He was receiving psychiatric therapy on the VA.
On the sentencing, Charron wore the inexperienced camouflage scrubs afforded to inmates who served within the army, and his lawyer mentioned Charron had been taking part in veterans applications on the county jail.
The sufferer’s father mentioned he was a Vietnam veteran himself and hated any suggestion that Charron may get any leniency as a vet.
“It simply makes me sick,” Manuel Sardinha instructed the choose. He recalled how she would play “The Twelve Days of Christmas” on the piano on the household residence through the holidays. He mentioned accidents from a 2019 motorbike accident had derailed her ambition of culinary college, however she was planning to make use of the monetary settlement to open a remedy apply.
Charron had been courting Sardinha just some months. She had given him almost $100,000 of the $750,000 she gained within the accident settlement.
Two weeks earlier than he killed her, she texted him to say that she couldn’t hear as a result of he had damaged her eardrum. She complained that he saved hitting her. He instructed police her accidents have been the results of “tough intercourse” and pressured her into dropping prices.
On the morning of her dying, she recorded herself begging him to get out of her condominium, saying, “You terrify me, since you don’t depart.”
When he lastly left, he bombarded her with calls and texts, which she ignored. Early that afternoon, at her request, a upkeep employee modified her locks, to maintain him out.
Nonetheless, Charron by some means slipped again inside round 1:15 p.m. — it’s not clear how — whereas she was on a three-way name along with her mother and her finest buddy. They heard her cry, “Oh my God, he’s right here.”
The buddy hung as much as name 911. Sardinha referred to as her again and left a chilling 37-second voicemail, screaming, “He’s gonna kill me!”
His voice was eerily absent from the voicemail, which the prosecutor urged was a perform of his calculated, unhurried mindset in killing her.
She was useless when police arrived, with stab wounds to the chest and head. He had almost sliced off her nostril. Police discovered Charron with knife wounds to his chest and neck, which authorities urged he inflicted on himself to create the fiction that she had attacked him.
Deputy District. Atty. Janine Madera mentioned it didn’t matter whether or not he faked the injuries or she inflicted them on him in self-defense, since he was the clear aggressor, muscular and towering over her by 9 inches.
Three of Charron’s ex-girlfriends, who took out restraining orders in opposition to him, testified that he had assaulted them. One mentioned he had choked her, a second that he slapped her, a 3rd that he pinned her to a wall.
Charron claimed that his confrontation with Sardinha was “hazy” in his reminiscence however that he acted in self-defense. Protection legal professional Michael Guisti mentioned his shopper’s violent historical past consisted of “non-murderous violence,” and that he could have acted within the warmth of ardour when he killed Sardinha.
Charron made no assertion at Friday’s sentencing, and gave no apology.
