DC Illegal hog ties widows

Illegal immigrant convicted of hog-tyings, murderBy: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
05/16/09 10:05 PM EDT
A 34-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador was found guilty of murdering a 63-year-old Bethesda woman and hog-tying and robbing three other widows.

A Montgomery County jury on Friday agreed with prosecutors that Jose Garcia-Perlera attacked the elderly women in their homes along the River Road corridor in Bethesda, Potomac and Chevy Chase. He beat Mary Havenstein, the woman in his last attack, to death.

When Garcia-Perlera was arrested in October, his case became the first of several attacks allegedly committed by illegal immigrants in Montgomery County that got media attention. Those crimes, including the shooting death of 14-year-old Tai Lam on a county bus, eventually led County Executive Ike Leggett to change the county’s policy regarding illegal immigrants. As of January, anyone accused of certain violent crimes has their name sent to federal officials who check their immigration status. The attacks against the four widowed women shook one of the wealthiest sections of the county to the core. As Garcia-Perlera’s attorney Samuel Delgado put it in his closing arguments Friday, “We know from evidence that we’re talking about affluent neighborhoods ... beautiful homes, beautiful lawns and art.”

“When something happens out there, the police respond and they respond quickly,” he said.

That they did, pressing hard on the investigation that stretched from the first attack in September 2007 and through Havenstein’s September 2008 murder.

Police collected Garcia-Perlera’s DNA evidence from three of the crime scenes, although they didn’t know it was his until after his Oct. 15 arrest. On that day, police searched his apartment and found dozens of items stolen from the women’s homes.

Delgado argued that although Garcia-Perlera was a thief who “dabbled” in buying stolen property, “a thief does not a murderer make.”

But the jury was not convinced.

On Friday, they convicted Garcia-Perlera of murdering Havenstein. Added to that were four counts of burglary, four counts of false imprisonment for hog-tying the women, three counts of robbery, one count of armed robbery and one count of first-degree assault.

In his closing argument Friday, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy described the hog-tying and beatings the women received as “overkill.”

“He treated these women like animals,” McCarthy said. “You don’t hog-tie people, you hog-tie animals.”

He could be sentenced to prison for hundreds of years.