USA - Federal Judge Liam O'Grady sentenced Jorge Torrez to death

Federal Judge Liam O'Grady in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced Jorge Torrez, 25, hispanic, to death for strangling Amanda Jean Snell, 20, a female sailor, in July 2009. Torrez, a Marine at the time of the murder, also stands accused of killing 2 young girls in March 2005, and prosecutors in Illinois plan to try him for those crimes. A federal jury voted unanimously April 24 (see) that Torrez should be put to death for killing Snell. During the penalty phase of the federal court case, details emerged about the Zion slayings, which led to the wrongful prosecution of 1 victim's father, Jerry Hobbs, who was jailed for years until DNA evidence taken from Torrez cleared him. After the jury's decision, Lake County State's Attorney Mike Nerheim had said he would start taking legal steps to return Torrez to Illinois for a trial in the slayings of Krystal Tobias, 9, and Laura Hobbs, 8. Even before Friday's sentencing, Torrez was serving 5 life sentences plus 168 years in prison for a separate series of brutal crimes against 3 women in Virginia in 2010. Torrez enlisted in the Marines in September 2006, his lawyers said. That was more than a year after the Zion double murders. He was kicked out after his arrest in 2010 for a series of predatory crimes against women in Arlington, Va. One young women whom he abducted on a snowy night was tied up, raped, sodomized, choked with her own winter scarf and left for dead in a wooded area several miles away. She crawled to a roadway, was rescued by a motorist, survived the terrifying ordeal and testified against Torrez.