Sister of man stabbed to death: 'We are all sentenced to life'


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SALT LAKE CITY — Joaquin Gonzalez wanted to be a better father than his own was by supporting his children and being a part of their lives. But a violent attack by a stranger took that chance away.

"My brother lived with what his children are going to experience," Naomi Seifullah, Gonzalez's sister, said at a sentencing hearing for her brother's killer. "My brother was trying to give his sons something better, and now they're getting something worse."

"He was an awesome father," she added.

Harlin Argelio Ramos, 32, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years to life in prison for the death of Gonzalez, 33.

Seifullah, along with the mother of Gonzalez's three sons, asked 3rd District Judge James Blanch to give Ramos a maximum prison sentence.

"I ask that he be sentenced to the fullest extent, because I am sentenced to life, we are all sentenced to life," she said.

Blanch told Ramos that he will serve "a significant penalty … for a significant crime." Given an opportunity to adjust the sentence, the judge said he wouldn't.

Ramos' attorney, Edwin Wall, reiterated his argument from the trial Wednesday that Gonzalez was killed when "two lives intersected" and, in a fight for is own life, Ramos stabbed Gonzalez.

A jury in November was unconvinced by Ramos' assertions he stabbed Gonzalez in self-defense when a case of mistaken identity resulted in a confrontation. Instead they bypassed a lesser option of manslaughter and found Ramos guilty of murder, a first-degree felony, after four hours of deliberation.

Events of April 19, 2014

Gonzalez, of Chicago, had just finished watching a movie about 1 a.m. on April 19, 2014, with Megan Sellers when his path crossed with Ramos'. The couple had walked from The Gateway shopping center to Sellers' car at 515 W. 100 South and were in the vehicle saying goodbye when Ramos opened the door of the car.

Gonzalez got out of the vehicle to confront Ramos and was stabbed multiple times and killed.

At some point, Sellers said she heard Gonzalez cry out, "Please don't kill me. I have kids." His plea was in English, however, and Ramos speaks primarily Spanish.

While Ramos' attorney argued at trial that he had simply opened the door to the wrong car, believing it belonged to someone who had come to pick him up, and then found himself in a fight, Sellers told police she had noticed Ramos and his brother-in-law pass by the car and then circle back toward it before approaching.

"My whole life has changed because of this situation," Sellers told the judge Wednesday, explaining the nightmares she still experiences and the time she had to take off work after witnessing "such an evil act."

However, she doesn't believe Ramos will ever be the same again, either.

'I hope it haunts him'

"I don't think there is any way to clean your soul from that," Sellers said. "I hope it haunts him the way it has haunted everybody else."

Ramos was raised by a grandmother in Honduras and came to the United States as a teenager, Wall said. He has a common-law wife and three children. While Ramos was deported eight times, this was his only violent offense, the attorney noted.

"It wasn't something that was cold, calculated or planned," Wall said of the stabbing. "That's not what this case is."

However, Salt Lake County deputy district attorney Matthew Janzen argued that it takes only a moment to formulate a plan and then carry it out. Ramos has shown no remorse for the killing, Janzen added.

Ramos chose not to speak at the hearing. Wall noted that Ramos intends to appeal the conviction.

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McKenzie Romero

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