Erica Arroyo's voice was silenced more than a year ago by Jorge Lira Garcia, who raped and strangled the 7-year-old.
On Friday, a judge spoke for the dead child in a moving courtroom eulogy and then sent her killer to prison forever."It doesn't seem right somehow today that we not acknowledge her," said 2nd District Judge Pamela Heffernan Friday. The judge barely looked at Garcia, who was spared the death penalty by a single juror's vote during a penalty hearing earlier this month.
The occasion was Garcia's formal sentencing. Its outcome had already been determined at the earlier hearing when the panel that convicted him of Arroyo's killing deadlocked on the death penalty and then voted unanimously that he serve life without parole.
Heffernan took a moment to eulogize the girl, whose body is buried in a family graveyard in Mexico. Her parents continue to live in Ogden, although they were not present at the hearing. The judge's words turned the routine hearing into a somber affair.
"In the complexities of trial, given the issues Mr. Garcia was facing, the primary emphasis was on him," she said. "Out of respect for the victim, I think she needs to be recognized today. I think it's important that we first remember Erika."
She loved to read, dance and listen to music, Heffernan said. And already, she had dreams.
"She was going to be someone one day."
Her family came to the United States 16 years ago "with hope . . . of a life free of the poverty," of their native Michoacan, one of the poorest states in Mexico, the judge said. That hope suffered a blow of "immeasurable proportion" when Garcia took their daughter.
"Despite all that has happened, we hope the Arroyos will continue to live here and realize their dream.
"Erika will be with us for a very long time," she said.