Indiantown man pleads guilty to fatally stabbing his wife during frenzied attack

STUART – Before an Indiantown man on Wednesday pleaded guilty to murder, state prosecutors played a deputy's body camera video that captured the moment he was pulled off of a woman he was stabbing to death on a bedroom floor. Their young daughter cried out in a hallway.

The chilling video, recorded by a Martin County sheriff’s deputy who was responding to a 911 call on March 27, showed deputies kicking down a bedroom door to find Pedro Mateo-Andres, 39 standing over Dominga Gaspar Francisco, who was covered in blood from the frenzied attack.

MCSO: Man suspected of fatally stabbing wife arrested in Indiantown

The body cam worn by Deputy Samuel Kimmel showed him performing CPR on the 39-year-old woman as other deputies secured Mateo-Andres in another room. Their toddler-aged girl was lifted up and removed from the scene, the video showed.

Francisco, who suffered multiple stab wounds to her face, head and upper body, died of her injuries en route to a hospital, according to arrest records.

Mateo-Andres was taken into custody by deputies responding to a 911 call that came from a three-bedroom boardinghouse in the 14000 block of Southwest Cherokee Drive, where the couple lived with their daughter and several other families.

At the time, Chief Deputy John Budensiek said Mateo-Andres had multiple cuts to his hands and a puncture wound to his left leg. He said Mateo-Andres told investigators he stabbed Francisco because he believed she was cheating on him.

‘I am guilty’

In court Wednesday, Mateo-Andres, who is from Guatemala, avoided a trial by pleading guilty to first-degree murder with a weapon before Circuit Judge William Roby, who asked him questions aided by an interpreter fluent in the Mayan language Q'anjob'al.

“My understanding is at this time you wish to plead guilty to the charge of first-degree murder with a weapon. Is that what you want to do?" Roby asked.

“Yes,” said Mateo-Andres, standing at a podium with the interpreter and his attorney Guillermo Flores Jr.

“You're doing that because you are guilty, correct?” Roby pressed.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I am guilty.”

Dressed in orange jail garb and chained at his hands, waist and ankles, Mateo-Andres kept his answers short and offered no explanation for his actions. Three of his family members, which included his parents, attended the hearing and remained in the courtroom as prosecutors played the graphic body cam video.

After determining Mateo-Andres was "knowingly and freely" volunteering to plead guilty, Roby sentenced him to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Stabbing confession

Court filings show after his arrest Mateo-Andres made incriminating statements to investigators. He said as he wielded the knife, Francisco asked him “why are you doing this?”

“Mateo-Andres stated that he replied, ‘You don’t love me’” detectives reported.

“I didn’t want to do it; I just couldn’t handle it,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel nothing.”

He reported that he and Francisco had argued for about 20 minutes before “he went to his kitchen, retrieved a knife, entered the bedroom and stabbed her in the abdomen.”

“(He) stated he was so angry he doesn’t remember how many times he stabbed the victim,” a report stated.

Investigators also spoke to Francisco’s son, Alex Pedro-Miguel, who rented a bedroom in the same house and said his mother and Mateo-Andres had been together for seven years and married in 2020.

He told investigators prior to the murder, Mateo-Andres had grown jealous and suspected she was having an affair after finding a voicemail on a phone the couple shared.

Some of the insecurities in the marriage were from Francisco joining social media, Pedro-Miguel reported to investigators.

Code-enforcement case: Fenced-in area near dunes at Stuart Beach ignites opposition

Trump trial: Will Donald Trump appear at his criminal trial at the Fort Pierce federal courthouse?

After court, Assistant State Attorney David Lustgarten said Mateo-Andres and his attorney knew that if he were tried and convicted of capital murder, a possible punishment was the death penalty.

But because Mateo-Andres agreed early on to plead guilty, Lustgarten said that cut short the deliberations prosecutors undergo when determining whether to seek the death penalty.

“When the defense reached out to us in anticipation of us having that (death penalty) discussion … they came to us, indicating that they would be willing to plead to life without the possibility of parole,” he said. “The State Attorney (Tom Bakkedahl) instructed us to offer life without parole.”

Francisco’s relatives, who Lustgarten said opted not to attend Wednesday’s hearing, were also consulted.

Defense attorney Flores Jr., after the hearing said, “It’s a difficult situation for everybody involved.”

He noted Mateo-Andres quickly accepted responsibility and pleaded guilty “a mere 94 days” after killing Francisco.

“The judge asked a lot of questions, and the state presented a lot of questions to make sure that he was clear what he was accepting,” Flores Jr. said. “Many times he said, ‘I'm guilty.’  But again, there's just no winners in this scenario.”

Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of  Uncertain Terms, a true crime podcast. Reach her at  melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com.  If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Indiantown man pleads guilty to brutal murder of his wife in March