AURORA, Colo. — A Colorado man who fled to Mexico after he killed his ex-girlfriend in Aurora in 2017 has been sentenced to 60 years in prison, officials announced Friday.
Arturo Garcia, 24, pleaded guilty in April to a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Ally Raber.
He was sentenced to 48 years for the murder charge and 12 years for a witness tampering charge in a previous domestic case involving Raber.
Raber was 18 when police found her dead in a motel room on July 2, 2017. Investigators said Garcia strangled Raber and left her body in the room before he fled to Mexico.
Garcia was arrested in Mexico in 2019 and extradited to Colorado.
Garcia had a history of domestic violence, and Raber had a civil protection order against him. Still, she went to visit him on the night she was killed.
“She truly believed she could help him,” her stepfather told the judge, according to a news release from the district attorney's office. “He took advantage of that innocence, and when he could no longer control her, he ended her life.”
Court documents from his prior cases detailed multiple instances in which Garcia allegedly choked, beat or threatened Raber and her family, and that he also tried to extort several Raber’s family members for money with nude photos of Raber, including her mother and grandmother, among others.
Police arrested Garcia on a domestic violence warrant in January 2017 for incidents that happened in October 2016, and when he got out of jail, he was accused in February 2017 of using the nude photos to get her to try and stop cooperating in the domestic violence case pending against Garcia.
“This defendant previously pleaded guilty to hurting Ally. He admitted that abuse and could have used that opportunity to learn from his mistakes,” District Attorney John Kellner said. “He chose not to take the path of rehabilitation, and instead he killed Ally – by all accounts an extraordinary young woman with great things in front of her.
“The way Ally’s family has responded and the strength they have shown is testament to the difference she made in the world.”
