Thursday, July 1, 2010

Passiac, NJ: Passaic ax murderer guilty of aggravating factors in wife's death

Thursday, July 1, 2010
LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY JULY 1, 2010, 4:41 PM
BY RICHARD COWEN

A jury on Thursday found Fernando Chireno guilty of two aggravating factors in the ax murder of his wife, Luisa, ending the seven-week trial while all but ensuring that the Passaic man will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

The jury in Paterson found that Chireno killed his wife during the commission of a burlgary and in violation of a restraining order. Those two aggravating factors make him eligible for the maximum sentence of life without parole when he is returned to state Superior Court Sept . 17 for sentencing. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Ranges said he will ask Judge Raymond A. Reddin to impose the maximum sentence on Chireno.

On Tuesday, the same jury found Chireno guilty of murder, weapons possession, burglary, and endangering the welfare of a child. The murder conviction exposed Chireno, 34, a maximum sentence of life in prison with a chance for parole after serving 85 percent of the term, which was calculated at about 58 years. Under this lighter sentence, Chireno would have had a chance to be paroled if he lived until 92.

The jury returned for a second phase of the trial immediately following Tuesday's verdict to determine whether the aggravating factors were present on the morning of April 18, 2008, when Chireno broke into the apartment of his estranged wife, Luisa, on Myrtle Avenue in Passaic; He was armed with an ax that he had purchased the night before at The Home Depot.

While the the couple's three children cowered in a nearby room, Chireno chased his wife with the ax and struck her 15 times. She she collapsed in the middle of Myrtle Avenue. At the trial, Chireno pleaded insanity, claiming he was a paranoid schizophrenic who heard voices from God.

But the state convinced the jury that Chireno was no madman but an angry, jealous husband who thought his wife was sleeping with another man, and coldly calculated her murder. Seven months before her death, Luisa Chireno videotaped her husband threatening to kill her. She kept the tape, just in case something bad happened to her, prosecutor's said.

The victim also sought--and got--a restraining order against Chireno six weeks before her death. Superior Court Judge John Selser signed the order on March 4, 2008. While that restraining order did not prevent Chireno from killing his wife, it may now prevent him from ever leaving prison.

E-mail: cowen@northjersey.com

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