GUILTY NV - Erika Fuentes de Espinal, 26, shot to death, Las Vegas, 20 Oct 2005

mysteriew

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The man accused of shooting his girlfriend in the head and then leaving her body in their apartment for days, was in court Monday morning.

Twenty-five-year-old Mark Donaldson was given a date for his preliminary hearing for the murder of Erika Fuentes de Espinal. It was the victim's son who alerted authorities to this unusual case.

The arrest report says that on the night she was murdered, Fuente's oldest child, 7-year-old Nicholas, knew his mother was dead when he saw blood and she didn't answer him. He told police that he did not go to school the next day, but stayed home with his stepfather Mark, his little sister Vanessa and his twin baby sisters, who were 6 weeks old.

But on Monday, Oct. 24, Nicholas walked to Jacobson Elementary School alone and that's when his mother's murder was revealed. After Nicholas told his teacher that his mother would not be picking him up again from school because she was dead, the teacher and a counselor began calling family members to see if this was true.
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4053993
 
OMGosh!
Those poor children. How could this guy do that? Leave her body in the apartment for all those days with the kids there too. Then,.....the way the boy went to school on Monday, oh my goodness!! I can't even imagine. This is terrible! This must have traumatized that teacher too!

What has gotten into people?

JMHO
fran
 
Right now I am thinking the whole world is gone crazy. Sex offenders and domestic violence abusers are starting to rule the news. Seems like the whole world is nuts.
 
mysteriew said:
Right now I am thinking the whole world is gone crazy. Sex offenders and domestic violence abusers are starting to rule the news. Seems like the whole world is nuts.

You know mysteriew:
I think it's always been there, just swept under the rug. I think the the LP case and SP's trial showed the media how interested people are in this. I think the public is interested because this is real life. They found out stuff during LP's search and then SP's trial they never heard of or dreamed existed. They found out SOs kill their pregnant wife, most men who kill their SO have a ehhhh..."side salad" ( :p , LOL), $$$$$$ really is the root of all evil, that, the most innocent looking people on the outside, can still have a 'dark heart,' parents can even be fooled ( :waitasec: ), in-laws can be hood-winked, even the happiest of couples aren't exempt of this type of behavior......, plus, the majority of the time, good wins over evil.

As for the sex offender cases this year,.........well,.........that's a whole other story. I don't know who opened the door, but they've definitely seemed to have taken over. And each offender seems to be trying to out-do the one prior. Evil!

JMHO
fran
 
I hope there is a loving relative who can take them all in,the youngest are only 6 weeks what a terrible tragedy for all the family .Hope he rots in prison:behindbar
 
Fuente's two oldest children are now in California with their biological father. The twin babies are with family members in Las Vegas


From the link..
Sad they will be seperated. Poor babies All 4 of them.
 
Were all four children living in the apartment with the body of their mother? How awful!!
 
A conversation between a Las Vegas teacher and one of her students led to the discovery of the boy's dead mother. A heartbreaking admission from a 7-year-old boy led that teacher to Metro police, and the beginning of a murder investigation. The suspect in the case now awaits a judge's decision about his future.

Amanda Winkle said, "He came up to me and told me he got to walk to school now." Amanda Winkle is a second grade teacher at Jacobson Elementary School and didn't think twice about what the little boy's said until he brought it up again.

"At the end of the day he came back up to me and he told me that he -- his mom -- will not be picking him up after school today," Winkle said. Again, she assumed the little boy was just making conversation.

Winkle has never met the boy's mother, Erica Fuentes, or her live in boyfriend, Mark Donaldson, a boyfriend the victim's son referred to as "Dad." When the boy approached Winkle for a third time, it was then she knew something was wrong.

Winkle said, "He said, 'No, Ms. Winkle my mom is never going to pick me up from school anymore.' I asked him why because I figured this was the second time he was asking me and he told me, 'My mom' -- and I don't know if he said she is dead or died."

Winkle asked the boy how his mother died. He said he didn't know, that he had been doing homework when she died. Winkle asked the boy if police or paramedics had come to the house. The boy said no. That's when Winkle told her bosses something was wrong, and that's when Metro went to the apartment.
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4390847
..................................................
:( This is a very sad story .The poor little boy must have been so scared .
I hope this gets DP
 
That poor little boy! I am sorry, but that teacher bugs me as well. That little boy in his own way was trying to tell her something was wrong. He tried 3 times and she finally got it. She said on the 3rd try, she figured he was trying to make converstaion? So, what, she ignored him the first 2 times and didnt ask him anything? And... she had never met the parents? I know that is not her fault, obviously these parents never went to conferences, open house.... It seems to me she was just brushing that kid off. It just seems that the first time he said his mom was not picking him up, she could have asked why. Would that have been so hard? He is only 7, you would think she would be concerned with how he is getting home. Maybe I am being harsh on the teacher, but this kid was crying out for help, 3 times to be exact and his teacher ignored him.
 
You hit the nail on the head, he was trying to tell her that something was very wrong and didn't know how. Makes me wonder if he was afraid to go home as well.
 
This story makes me so sad. How scared that little 7 year old must have been to know his mom was dead, she wouldn't answer him and he saw blood. The loser guy shoots her in front of the kids and then leaves her body there and keeps them home with them. How depressingly sad this is, how brave the 7 year old was to say something. Yeah the teacher was less than stellar, but at least eventually she listened and he didn't have to endure another day with the evil guy. So sad though, hopefully their mom will be an angel watching over them from heaven.
 
From January 2010:

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jan/25/man-who-hid-dead-girlfriend-under-blankets-kids-se/

Donaldson pleaded guilty in November to first-degree murder as well as two counts of child abuse and neglect with substantial mental harm for keeping the children in the house with their dead mother.

Judge David Wall sentenced him to life in prison with parole eligibility after 20 years for her murder. He was sentenced to 20 years with parole eligibility after eight years on the two child abuse counts, which will run concurrently to each other but consecutively to the sentence on the murder charge.

The soonest he would be eligible for parole is 28 years.
 

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