A Florida man who fatally stabbed his girlfriend with a four-inch steak knife and then dropped her children off at daycare has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On Sept. 18, a Seminole County jury deliberated for just 14 minutes before finding 38-year-old Farel Torres guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Vanessa Santiago, who was killed in their Casselberry home on the morning of May 29, 2024.
Prosecutors said Torres attacked Santiago because he was furious that she was ending their relationship and forcing him to move out of the two-bedroom apartment he shared with their 3-year-old son and her 5-year-old son from a prior relationship.
Several video cameras inside the apartment captured the couple arguing the day before the killing and into the early morning hours of May 29.
According to Domenick Leo, chief trial attorney for the 18th Circuit, Torres allegedly repositioned some of the cameras so they would not capture him walking into the kitchen to retrieve a knife. Leo said Torres also removed the SD card from the camera in the master bedroom — where Santiago was killed — and hid it under the bed along with a pair of scissors and the knife.
The following morning, audio recorded by one of the cameras captured the fatal confrontation in the bedroom.
Leo said investigators believe Torres approached Santiago while she was seated on the floor with her legs crossed, telling him to leave. He then allegedly went to the bed where he had hidden the knife, grabbed it and stabbed her in the chest, penetrating her heart, followed by a stab wound to the right side of her abdomen. Santiago also suffered a cut to her ear and a stab wound to her face that left the knife lodged partly in her skull. She was stabbed at least seven times.
Video footage also showed that Santiago’s 5-year-old son witnessed part of the attack, Leo said.
In the footage, the older child hears screams and, with the bedroom door open, climbs down from a bunk bed and walks down the hallway in his onesie pajamas toward the room. He then appears to see his mother being stabbed before Torres tells him to leave. The child turns around and walks back down the hallway, visibly stunned.
Torres then closed the bedroom door. In the video, Leo said, both boys can be seen trying to peer under the door jamb to see what was happening to their mother. At one point, Santiago’s 5-year-old son knocked on the door, and Torres responded by telling him to go away and claiming he and their mother were talking, even as she was bleeding out and could be heard struggling to breathe.
After the killing, Torres allegedly cleaned himself with baby wipes, dressed the children, put a diaper on the 3-year-old and drove them to daycare.
At the daycare, Leo said, Torres appeared calm and routine on CCTV footage from the facility. He walked in with the boys, patted them on the head, filled out paperwork and then left, giving no outward sign that anything was different from any other day.
Once he returned home, Torres called police and confessed to what he had done.
He has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
