A Central Florida man who fatally stabbed his girlfriend, left her body on their bedroom floor, then drove their children to school was convicted of murder.
38-year-old Farel Torres, of Casselberry, killed 34-year-old Vanessa Santiago with a steak knife in their apartment off S.R. 436 and Winter Woods Boulevard on May 29, 2024. Hours later, a seemingly hysterical Torres called police and told dispatchers, “I stabbed her in the head … I stabbed her ‘cause I was mad.”
At trial, Seminole County prosecutors Domenick Leo, Jacob Polk and Sarah Mian made the case that Torres’ tears were part of an act.
Torres told Casselberry Police he recklessly killed Santiago during an argument, and he told jurors at trial it was in a fit of passion – possible reasons for manslaughter charges instead of murder. But prosecutors presented evidence that Torres maliciously killed Santiago and seemed to prepare for it by retrieving the knife from a kitchen drawer and disabling a security camera in the bedroom…