Niece gets 23 years' prison for killing aunt with meat cleaver in Queens

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Tuesday, August 20, 2019
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JAMAICA, Queens -- A woman who killed her aunt with a meat cleaver in the New York City home they shared has been sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan says 32-year-old Elizabeth Sanchez was sentenced Tuesday. She's also known as Digna Sanchez-Ortiz.

Court records show she pleaded guilty in June to manslaughter and rape. Ryan says the rape charge concerned Sanchez' sexual relations with a boy under 15.

She'll serve her 2 1/3-to-7-year sentence on the rape charge simultaneously with her prison term for killing her aunt, Maria Palaguachi.

Ryan says Palaguachi took Sanchez in when she had nowhere to stay. The 50-year-old Palaguachi was killed in March 2017 in her home in the Jamaica neighborhood.

A message was left for Sanchez' lawyer after the sentencing.

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