Son Turns Himself In To Police After Sweetwater Mother's Murder
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- The son of a woman found murdered in Sweetwater has been arrested and now her nephew is speaking out in an exclusive interview.
"She was a really happy person. She lived her life the best way she could with everyone," said Jose Otalora, whose 54-year-old aunt Lisbeth Sandigo was reportedly killed last week inside the Sweetwater apartment she shared with her son and whose found was discovered last Thursday.
Otalora told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "She didn't have much but she always tried to help people. She was peaceful and she loved her family. She was a very sweet family. She meant a lot to our family, especially my mom. She always saw her and talked to her every day. She feels like she lost a piece of herself. My aunt was always involved with her family life. And to see her alive one day and gone the next, it is hard. I just have a lot of remorse and regrets. It is really hard right now to comprehend. We are trying to cope with it and not jump to any conclusions and we don't want to talk about the investigation."
On Tuesday, police say the victim's son, Joaquin Villagra, 32, drove to the Palmetto Bay Village police department and alerted officers that he was a suspect. He had been missing since his mother was found dead.
Veteran Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta said, "To kill a person is already something that is terrible but to kill your own mother is beyond belief. It is something you never think of. It's a crime that's terrible to the family to know that the person who she brought in to this life is charged with taking her life."
Villagra reportedly told investigators that last Tuesday he did cocaine before he and his mother argued over his drug use, his coming home late and lack of a job.
"I was really bad. I was strange, weird. I wasn't the same," he said, according to his arrest report.
Villegas said during the course of the argument, he went to his mother's bedroom, opened the door and blacked out. He reportedly did not remember if he killed her because he was high on cocaine, according to the report.
He said he recalled taking his mother's credit card from her purse, along with the keys to her car, and driving off in her 2005 Toyota Corolla.
Sandigo's family found her body Thursday in her bedroom in the apartment. Villagra's arrest report states that her body was half on, half off her bed and her face was covered with a large pillow which had blood on it. Family members told police that both her car and son were missing.
"The police report did mention that during the struggle, he received scratches on the side of his face, nose and ears," said Zabaleta.
Villagra has been charged with second degree murder with a deadly weapon.
Co-workers told CBS4 that Sandigo was a longtime employee of Dry Clean USA. At the Sunset Drive store where she most recently worked -- recently changed to SPOTS -- Lizette Fernandez said, "She was a good person, an excellent person."
The sentiments were echoed by neighbors at the Sweetwater apartment where flowers sit outside the home where she used to live.
Neighbor Ruben Pena said, "She looked like a great person, a really great person." Another neighbor Elise Portal said, "She was a good person, an excellent person."
