Fla. Man Kills Girlfriend with Steak Knife, Drops Kids Off at Daycare Like It's 'No Different Than Any Other Day' By Christine Pelisek

A Florida man who fatally stabbed his girlfriend with a four-inch steak knife before dropping her children off at daycare was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A Seminole County jury deliberated for just 14 minutes on Sept. 18 before convicting Farel Torres, 38, of second-degree murder in the death of Vanessa Santiago, who was killed in their Casselberry home on the morning of May 29, 2024.

Prosecutors argued at his trial that Torres killed Santiago because he was angry she was breaking up with him and throwing him out of the two-bedroom apartment he shared with their 3-year-old son and her 5-year-old son from a previous relationship.

There were several video cameras in the apartment that showed the couple fighting the day before the killing into the early morning hours of May 29.

Torres allegedly moved some of the cameras that “would’ve watched him go into the kitchen to get a knife,” Domenick Leo, chief trial attorney for the 18th Circuit, tells PEOPLE. Torres also “took the SD card out of the camera in the master bedroom where she was killed and hid it under the bed along with a pair of scissors and the knife,” he says.

The following morning, camera audio picked up the fatal fight between the two in the bedroom.

“The theory is he approached her while she was sitting with her legs crossed on the floor and she was basically telling him to get the hell out,” Leo says. “And then he went to the bed where he hid the knife, grabbed the knife, and then stabbed her first in the chest all the way through to her heart. And then a stab to her right side of her abdomen. He cut her ear and then stabbed her in the face where the knife was lodged in part of her skull. That’s how she was found with the knife in her skull.”

Santiago was stabbed at least seven times.

According to Leo, video camera footage also showed her 5-year-old son witnessing the killing.

“The older child hears the screams and the door to the bedroom was open, and you can see him climbing down the bunk bed going down the hallway in his little onesie pajama,” says Leo. “He goes into the bedroom, basically sees his mom getting stabbed and killed, the defendant tells him to get out of there. The kid turns around and you can see the video of the kid walking back. He looks like a ghost.”

Torres then closed the door to the bedroom. “You can see on this video, the two little boys are like trying to peek underneath the bottom of the door jamb to see what’s going on underneath the door with their mom,” Leo says, describing the footage as “just awful, awful, awful.”

At one point, Leo says, Santiago’s 5-year-old son knocked on the door. “And the defendant’s like, ‘go away. Your mom and I are talking.’ Of course, at this point, mom is bleeding out. You can hear her gurgling in her blood.”

After the murder, Torres allegedly cleaned up with baby wipes before he got the children dressed, put a diaper on the 3-year-old and drove them to daycare.

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“When he gets to the daycare, he’s very nonchalant,” says Leo. “You can watch him walking in on the CCTV from the daycare facility — just walks right in with the two kids and pats them on the head and fills out some paperwork. And it’s no different than any other day. [He] just turns around and walks out. You couldn’t tell that there was anything that had happened differently that day than any other day.”

After Torres returned home, he called police and told them what he had done.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.