Holyoke, MA: Alexander Escalera of Holyoke says he believes he killed girlfriend Iris Padilla, but doesn't remember doing it

Published: Wednesday, June 09, 2010, 5:32 PM Updated: Wednesday, June 09, 2010, 5:49 PM
Buffy Spencer, The Republican
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SPRINGFIELD – Alexander Escalera believes he killed his girlfriend in Holyoke in May 2008, but told a judge on Wednesday that he doesn’t remember doing it because he was intoxicated.

Escalera, 31, of 89 Franklin St., pleaded guilty in Hampden Superior Court to a charge of second-degree murder and was sentenced by Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder to the mandatory life in prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving 15 years.

The guilty plea came under a provision of state law which allows a defendant to do so by agreeing the state can prove the crime, even if he does not remember it.


Alexander Escalera
Escalera, who has a long history of mental illness, according to his lawyer, pleaded guilty for the brutal stabbing death of Iris D. Padilla. The decomposing body of the 34-year-old Padilla was found in her 68 Cabot St. apartment on June 3, 2008, two days after her mother filed a missing person report.

Padilla had dropped her 14-year-old daughter off at a relative’s house on the morning of May 31 while she returned to her apartment to talk to Escalera, according to assistant district attorney Laurel H. Brandt. Brandt said the two had had an abusive relationship, and Escalera had served a jail sentence for beating Padilla with an electrical cord.

Padilla had once obtained a restraining order against Escalera, but it expired in 2005 and she had allowed him to stay with her, according to Brandt.

When Padilla did not return to pick up her daughter, relatives tried to telephone her and also found her car was gone from the apartment building, the prosecutor said.

Padilla’s mother, Carmen Gonzalez, filed a missing person report on June 1. On June 3, a representative of the Holyoke Housing Authority opened the apartment to discover large amounts of blood throughout, including a mop and a bucket of bloody fluid, Brandt said.

Padilla’s body was found partially wrapped in a comforter on the floor of the bedroom.

“The walls, curtain and floor of the bedroom were covered in blood,” Brandt said. Padilla bled to death from multiple knife wounds to her neck, arms, head, abdomen and elsewhere, the prosecutor said, adding that the woman sustained defensive wounds to her hands.

Escalera fled Holyoke with Padilla’s car and taking her cell phone, Brandt added. The car, with its keys, and the cell phone were found abandoned in Newburgh, N.Y., and Escalera was located on June 4 in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was traced to the apartment of a woman whom he had called on May 31 using Padilla’s cell phone, according to the prosecutor.

In his interviews with police, Brandt said Escalera was evasive, saying he and Padilla had argued buy claiming he could not remember what happened or if she was alive when he left.

In a statement to Kinder, Nushka Maysonet, Padilla’s daughter, said she remembered the last day she spent with her mother and how she anxiously waited for her to return.

“Three days later my mom was found dead,” Maysonet said. “My mom was a good person, a good mom, and a good friend. I see other girls with their moms and I know that I can’t be with my mom. that makes me sad.”

Maysonet told the judge she does not want to see Maysonet released from prison. “I want him to pay for what he did to my mom,” she said.

Defense lawyer Calvin C. Carr said Escalera has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, post traumatic stress syndrome, antisocial personality disorder, auditory hallucinations and other illnesses.