A mother who pleaded guilty in Texas in the death of her 5-year-old son three years ago was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison.
Nickolle Aguillar agreed to plead guilty to a charge of serious bodily injury to a child by omission, and District Judge Velia Meza gave her the maximum sentence allowed, KSAT reported.
Aguilar and her boyfriend, Daniel Garcia, were arrested in Florida in August 2021 after Aguilar admitted to her mother that Garcia had slammed her son against a wall at a hotel room on July 25 in San Antonio, causing him to vomit a dark substance before he died, as CrimeOnline reported. The couple left San Antonio and drove to Colorado, where they left Domenic Patrick Aguilar-Acevedo’s body in a ravine and drove south to Mexico and Costa Rica before heading to Florida.
Aguilar’s mother called San Antonio police and the FBI after the phone call. After the arrests, Aguilar confirmed her mother’s story and said she didn’t report the death because she was afraid of losing her other children. She also told investigators Garcia regularly abused the boy and she didn’t intervene because “she was too eager to be in a relationship.”
Garcia was convicted in May of injury to a child causing death and is set to be sentenced next week. Aguilar is expected to testify at the hearing.
Aguilar’s hearing was briefly postponed after she initially claimed to be a US citizen. She is a legal resident with a green card.
