A New York courtroom on Tuesday delivered the harshest possible punishment in the torture killing of a transgender man from Minnesota. A judge sentenced Precious Arzuaga and Jennifer "Brooklyn" Quijano to life in prison without parole for the 2025 murder of 24-year-old Sam Nordquist, whose body was found in a field in western New York's Yates County, USA Today reports. Prosecutors said Arzuaga met Nordquist on TikTok, began a romantic relationship, and lured him to upstate New York, where he was held and tortured for weeks in a motel room. Judge Kristina Karle said Nordquist suffered "cruel, torturous, horrific, dehumanizing actions."
Prosecutors, who described the murder as motivated by jealousy and "beyond depraved," said two of Arzuaga's children, a 7-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, were forced to take part in the torture. Another one of her children, 22-year-old Thomas Eaves, is among five co-defendants, the New York Times reports. Two have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Eaves and two others will go on trial in January. Under orders of protection, Arzuaga has been banned from ever seeing her children again. Karle told her: "I don't know what lies in that heart of yours to be able to do those types of things, but then to be able to enlist six other people, one of which is your son?"
Arzuaga, described as the ringleader, pleaded guilty to 10 charges including first-degree murder; Quijano, labeled "the muscle," was convicted of murder and kidnapping. "Sam came here looking for love, and sadly and tragically he found you," Karle told Arzuaga. Both women apologized in court and said they accepted their punishments. After the sentencing, Kayla Nordquist, Sam's sister, said she doubted the apologies were sincere, the Times reports. She said she had resisted the urge to take revenge on Arzuaga in the courtroom. "It was hard to be next to the devil and not turn into a demon," she said.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
