A 70-year-old Florida man has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to murdering a teenage girl, dumping her body in a trash bin and burning it.
Armando Botell of Miami struck a plea deal Thursday with the approval of Romina Fernandez’s parents. Fernandez was 17 when she was strangled in Miami in 2014. Her parents declined to make a statement to the judge.
Homicide investigators told The Miami Herald they were disappointed with the deal. Botell’s defense said going to trial would have been a risk.
Detectives say Botell had grown fixated on the teen, had given her drugs and had sex with her.
It was Botell’s second prison sentence for murder. He served less than 10 years for the 1980 murder of his girlfriend.
