Miami jury recommends death penalty for Alberto Sierra for killing estranged wife, her young daughters

A Miami jury has recommended the death penalty for Alberto Sierra, the man who pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife and her two daughters in 2012.

Emotions ran high inside the courtroom late Tuesday afternoon when the verdict was read, with the victim's surviving son breaking down in tears.

For the killing of Gladys Machado, the jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty, while the jury voted 12-0 in favor of the death penalty for 6-year-old Julia Padron, and 8-4 for the killing of 3-year-old Daniela Padron.

Jurors deliberated for about six hours on Tuesday before the decision was announced late Tuesday afternoon.

However, while the jury recommended the death penalty, the judge will have the final say as to what punishment to impose.

The judge is expected to make that decision next month.

Emotional death penalty trial lasted for weeks

Prosecutors had argued that Sierra initially tried to cover up the crimes but was ultimately linked to them through DNA evidence.

"Gladys and her little girls never came home again, all because of that person – right over there. He decided that that day would be their last," the prosecutor said when the death penalty trial began.

Among witnesses who took the stand was the neighbor who discovered the bodies of Machado and her daughters, as well as the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue first responders who were first at the scene.

Jurors heard emotional testimony from the victims' family members, including Machado's son, Michael Padrino Jr., who was 5 years old at the time and survived because he didn't want to go shopping that day. He instead wanted to stay home and watch a TV show.

"You took them," he said. "You know you did."

He was then escorted out of the courtroom as he wept uncontrollably. 

The defense began arguing its case by calling a doctor to the stand, and he brought up Sierra's medical history.

He discussed how Sierra had been previously hit by a car and was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The defense also said he has antisocial and borderline personality disorders. It asked jurors to consider life in prison without parole.

"He had a chance to have a family, but I think there were things going on in his brain that I want you to consider as to why he destroyed it," defense attorney Khurrum Wahid told jurors.

But the prosecutor then argued that the doctor hadn't treated Sierra and had never met him until the trial. 

Family members of Sierra also took the stand to defend him in the hopes that he would be spared from being sentenced to death.

Sierra himself did not take the stand in his death penalty trial.

"Ask yourself — is this the case — is this the defendant who should get my grace? I would submit to you that it is not," prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said.

Closing arguments were held Monday, and the jury began deliberating on Tuesday.

What happened to Gladys Machado and her daughters in 2012?

The killings happened in November 2012 after Sierra, Machado, and her daughters went to the Mall of the Americas on West Flagler Street, according to investigators.

Police said Sierra and Machado argued during the visit, and Sierra stabbed her. He then drove Machado and the girls to the family's home on Northwest 4th Street in west Miami-Dade.

Investigators said Sierra forced the family inside the home and locked the girls in a bedroom before taking Machado into the master bedroom and suffocating her with a plastic bag. Police said he then suffocated the two girls.

Investigators also accused Sierra of sexually assaulting Machado and one of the girls after their deaths.

"It was deliberate; it was cold. It was calculated, and it showed a heightened level of premeditation," the prosecutor said.

A third child, Machado's son, now 19-year-old Michael Padrino Jr., was with his grandmother at the time and was not harmed.

The bodies of Machado and her daughters were discovered days later after a neighbor noticed a foul odor coming from the home.

Police said Sierra confessed to the killings during questioning.

Witnesses during the trial included Sierra's mother, Mercedes Pedraza; Michael Padrino Sr., the girls' father; and Padrino Jr.