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Man gets 25 years to life for murdering and decapitating his boyfriend

Man gets 25 years to life for murdering and decapitating his boyfriend

A California man was just sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for killing his boyfriend, cutting him up into pieces, and burying his severed head, hands and feet in plastic 99-Cents Only store bags behind the iconic Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Last month, 38-year-old Gabriel Campos-Martinez (pictured) was found guilty of murdering his 66-year-old boyfriend Hervey Medellin four years ago. On Monday, a judge sentenced him to 25 years for the grisly crime.

The murder took place in December 2011, just days after Christmas. According to prosecutors, Campos-Martinez strangled Medellin then sliced him up with a saw. His body parts were then stuffed into a refrigerator before Campos-Martinez eventually bagged them up and buried them near the Bronson Canyon Trail in Griffith Park.

Three weeks later, two women found the bag containing Medellin’s head while they were out walking their dogs. Police later found Medellin’s hands and feet nearby buried less than six inches underground.

Around that same time, Campos-Martinez fled Los Angeles for San Antonio, where he married a woman and took a job working at the San Antonio Convention Center. Meanwhile, detectives were able to seize Campos-Martinez’s laptop. In his browser history they discovered searches for sausage-making tools and meat-saws, as well as one for how to “Butcher a Human Carcass for Human Consumption.”

“The article talked, gave directions on how to cut up a human body,” Los Angeles Police Department detective Lisa Sanchez-Padilla testified. “It gave directions on how high to go on the neck, where to cut on the wrist, the ankles, different parts of the body, and how to actually, in reading it, also how to drain it of blood.”

Detectives were unable to locate the actual tools Campos-Martinez used to dismember Medellin, and the man’s torso has yet to be found.

When asked at sentencing this week why he murdered Medellin, Campos-Martinez declined to answer the question, though authorities believe it was because the couple was headed for a break up.

“I think he felt the victim was going to leave him or ask him to move out,” Los Angeles prosecutor Bobby Grace told People. “He was totally dependent on Medellin financially.”

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