Killer in triple homicide receives life in prison

Judith Europa summed up what she lost on Dec. 9, 2007, in one word: "Everything."

"I lost my sister. I lost my brother-in-law ... I have lost my happiness," she told a judge in Prince William Circuit Court Thursday. "Everything ... he has taken away from me."

Speaking slowly, her voice broken with tears, Europa testified through a Spanish language interpreter during a sentencing hearing for Anastacio Sanchez Miranda, the father of her three children.

Sanchez Miranda, 41, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, pleaded guilty in June to killing three people and shooting two others who were sleeping in a house at 16613 Grandview Ave. in Woodbridge on Dec. 9, 2007, following a toddler's birthday party.

Thursday, Prince William Circuit Court Judge Richard Potter sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Attorneys agreed not to seek the death penalty at the request of the victims' families.

Prosecutors believe that Europa, who had ended her relationship with Sanchez Miranda a year earlier, was the intended target. She was not injured.

Thursday, Europa said she believes Sanchez Miranda was trying to kill their three children, who were also in the house at the time and were not injured.

Sanchez Miranda pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including two counts of capital murder, for killing Rosario Europa Martinez, 24; Juan Manuel Rios, 28; and Gerardo Lopez Garcia, 25. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated malicious wounding for shooting Franco Cruz and Rafael Guevara Rios, who survived.

Police said that Sanchez Miranda confessed to entering the unlocked house, going to an upstairs bedroom and shooting Europa Martinez, Judith Europa's sister, and Rios, her husband.

Lopez Garcia, who was in a bedroom across the hall, heard the shooting. He opened the door and tried to get the gun away from Sanchez, who shot him, police said.

Sanchez shot the two surviving victims after they also came to investigate the gunshots, police said.

Sanchez then fled the house and went to his younger sister's home in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where police arrested him hours later.

At the sentencing hearing, Sanchez Miranda's siblings described him as a loving brother and a good father to his three children.

Before he was sentenced, Sanchez Miranda apologized for the shootings. He said he did not mean to kill anyone, but did because he was drunk and he was angry because he thought Europa was trying to keep him away from his children.

"I never wanted to kill anyone," he said, speaking through a Spanish interpreter. "I was drunk that day. I lost control."

Potter sentenced Sanchez Miranda to life in prison for each of the two capital murder charges and a total of 58 years in prison for the other charges.

Potter said he felt the sentence was appropriate based on "direct appeals" from the surviving victims and the victims' family members "that the defendant be imprisoned for life, but not be executed."

"The fact is Mr. Sanchez is very fortunate indeed that he has not been compelled to give up his life" for taking the lives of others, Potter said.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.