Pocono News Section

Monroe County Murderer Sentenced to Life in Prison

Monroe County Murderer Sentenced to Life in Prison - Monday, January 12, 2009 at 4:35PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Monday, Jan 12, 2009 @ 04:35pm EST
STROUDSBURG - A judge sentenced a Monroe County murderer Monday morning. A jury convicted Miguel Gonzalez in October. Monday his attorney asked for a new trial because the judge didn't allow him to present all of the evidence he wanted. The same judge denied the request for a re-trial and told the 33-year-old his fate.

Miguel Gonzalez will spend the rest of his life in jail. He complained, "I had an unfair trial. Everybody saw what was done to me. I was prosecuted by the man who has the audacity to call himself an attorney."

In October a jury found Gonzalez guilty of murdering his wife Jeanette Claudio. She was 28 years old. It happened at their home in Coolbaugh Township in November of 2006.

The couple's two young children discovered the crime. "Their bloody mother laying dead in the doorway of their home and their father with a self inflicted gunshot wound," explained District Attorney David Christine.

The kids were four and eight at the time. Claudio's sister told the judge she now cares for them. She also said the whole family is destroyed.

Christine said, "The defendant richly deserves every moment which he spends in jail."

Leading up to the trial Gonzalez said he shot his wife and then shot himself but when he took the stand he changed his story and said several men broke into the house, hurt him and then likely killed his wife.

Defense Attorney Wes Niemoczynski argued his client couldn't remember the day of the murder correctly because of the gunshot wound to his brain. Niemoczynski wanted to put a doctor on the stand to testify about that but the judge said no. "It was very damaging to the defense to not be able to have a psychiatrist explain to the jury the mechanisms of the brain that had been adversely impacted," he said.

Now Miguel Gonzalez will spend life behind bars and his children will spend life without a father - or mother.

Niemoczynski says he will very likely appeal. Christine says he is ready to challenge him.