Killer accepts sentencing deal

The 32-year-old Las Vegas man convicted of stabbing his girlfriend to death and trying to kill her son accepted a deal from prosecutors Monday that calls for him to spend the rest of his life in prison.

James Valdez agreed to forgo his penalty hearing in exchange for two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

But 27-year-old John Reynolds and one of his fellow jurors said afterward that the jury was set to give Valdez a more lenient sentence.

The jury on Friday found James Valdez guilty of first-degree murder in the November 2004 stabbing of 31-year-old Teresa Tilden.

They also found Valdez guilty of attempted murder for the six stab wounds suffered by Tilden's then-12-year-old son, Shiloh Edsitty.

The deal Valdez took Monday "makes me feel horrible because I was holding out for second-degree murder," Reynolds said. "I don't believe prosecutors did a good job. I don't believe crime scene investigators did a good job. Nothing was proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt."

He and a second juror, who declined to be named, said they believe the crime occurred in the heat of passion.

Valdez's family also said Monday that they did not believe the killing was willful, premeditated or deliberate, so it should not have been classified as first-degree murder. That designation had made Valdez eligible for the death penalty.

"I just want to let everybody know he did love them both," his 36-year-old sister, Janice Valdez, said. "He didn't mean to do any of this at all."

Shiloh, now 15, acknowledged during the weeklong trial that his mother beat him and that the abuse diminished when she started dating Valdez. Janice Valdez and her sister, Gale Antolin, 38, said Tilden was controlling and also physically abused their brother.

"I feel it was provoked," Antolin said of the stabbing, echoing the defense attorneys' argument to the jury. "Whatever action happened that night was self-defense."

On the night of the stabbings, Valdez and Tilden had been fighting at their apartment near Warm Springs Road and Eastern Avenue, Shiloh had testified.

He said Valdez attacked them both but he was able to escape, running out the door and crying for help with a knife blade stuck in his chest.

Valdez knew what he was doing when he stabbed Tilden nine times and Shiloh six times, the teen testified.

Defense attorneys said Shiloh had stabbed Valdez first, at the urging of his mother, but the boy said neither he nor his mother held a knife that night.

Reynolds and his fellow juror said they wished prosecutors could have told them whose blood was where in the apartment.

Prosecutors showed jurors the large amount of blood left in the apartment and a crime scene investigator testified as to where they believed bloodletting had occurred.

But Reynolds said he wished the jury had been presented DNA test results on the blood.

He wanted to know if much of the blood belonged to Valdez, who was hospitalized for a stab wound he received during the attack. He also wanted to know whose fingerprints were on the three knives investigators found.

At least one crime scene investigator testified about the difficulties of lifting such prints from the handles.

Reynolds and the other juror also said the jury had reached a unanimous decision on life without the possibility of parole.

But a third juror, who also declined to be named, told prosecutors Bill Kephart and Vicki Monroe, "We weren't going to do the death penalty. That's all we agreed to."

That juror said the group reached a unanimous decision on the first-degree murder conviction by all agreeing to forgo the death penalty. He also praised prosecutors' handling of the case.

Valdez's defense lawyers said they believe the case was mishandled by the jurors because they agreed on a sentence prior to the penalty hearing. Only after hearing testimony and arguments in that penalty hearing were jurors supposed to decide upon one of three sentences: death, a life sentence without the possibility of parole or a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

But after announcing the jury's verdict on Friday, the foreman said an agreement also had already been reached on the penalty.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure told the jurors that the law requires a penalty hearing after a first-degree murder conviction so prosecutors and defense lawyers can try to sway the jury with mitigating or aggravating circumstances.

The judge did not allow the jury to disclose their proposed sentence and asked them to return Monday for the hearing.

By about 10 a.m. Monday, however, prosecutors and Valdez's defense lawyers had hashed out the plea agreement.

Upon learning that two jurors said there was a unanimous decision to give Valdez life with possible parole, Michael Cristalli, one Valdez's two lawyers, said, "It could have just as easily been death."

Bonaventure is slated to finalize Valdez's sentence on May 9.

Cristalli and his law partner, Marc Saggese, said they will file an appeal and believe Valdez can get a new trial because of the jury's premature decision on a penalty. Cristalli said the instructions Bonaventure gave to the jury should have been more specific.

If the conviction is reversed, however, prosecutors could again pursue a death sentence for Valdez.

"We start fresh," Kephart said.