Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
OGDEN, Utah (AP) — A 23-year-old woman who pleaded guilty to stabbing her girlfriend 46 times during a fight was sentenced Tuesday to at least 16 years and up to life in prison for the killing.
Victoria Mendoza sat in court with her head bowed as her girlfriend's relatives recalled how they took her in, considered her another daughter and tried to help as signs of trouble surfaced.
"I'm the monster here," Mendoza said in a flat, clipped voice. She pleaded guilty as charged to pulling out a folding knife and stabbing Tawnee Baird, 21, after a fight about a man escalated to punching and hair pulling.
There were earlier clues of domestic violence, like Baird's broken tooth explained away with a lie. But no one thought the couple's problems could be fatal, her mother said.
"It was just girls fighting," Dana Gunn said.
Baird loved animals and dreamed of moving to California and becoming an actress or a musician. She met Mendoza when both women were still teenagers.
"We welcomed Victoria into our big family with open arms," father Casey Baird said. "Yes, there was something odd, but my daughter loved her."
Prosecutors said the women who lived in Holladay had a volatile five-year relationship that was punctuated with marijuana and prescription drug use as well as jealousy and occasionally physical fights.
"There was just nothing we could do to get them apart," said Baird's grandmother, Llana Anderson.
Mendoza's guilty plea to a murder charge was a surprise move that went against the advice of her lawyer, Michael Studebaker, who said he was planning to argue his client suffered from battered woman syndrome.
But Mendoza told the judge she had no excuse for what she did on Oct. 18, 2014, while the couple was in a car after dropping off a friend.
None of the individual wounds from the 4-inch knife looked fatal, but Tawnee Baird likely died of shock and blood loss, a state medical examiner testified during a preliminary hearing in February.
After the stabbing, Mendoza apparently moved the body into the passenger's seat and drove to the church her family went to when she was growing up in Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City. She then called her sister and told her she hurt Baird.
Members of the Baird family asked for a sentence of life without parole. Judge Joseph Bean gave Mendoza the longest sentence he could.
"It's clear that Tawnee was, I think, a bright light in a sometimes dark world, and that light was extinguished by you, Ms. Mendoza," Bean said.
Under Utah law, a parole board ultimately will decide when Mendoza might be released after she serves her 16 years.
Tawnee Baird's father said he'll be at Mendoza's parole hearings. In the meantime, he had a message for other parents about possible signs of domestic violence in their children's relationships.
"Talk to your children," Casey Baird said. "If you see anything, hear of anything, don't take it lightly."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
