No one came to speak the day Nelson Fermin Garibay was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
No words of anger, nor of forgiveness.
Garibay, 47, wearing his yellow jail jumpsuit while seated with his hands cuffed behind his back, furrowed his brow and occasionally mumbled to his attorney next to him inside the Pomona Courthouse on Thursday, May 2, as Judge Roy G. Delgado ordered him to remain behind bars, forever.
Short and heavyset, bald but with a long goatee down to his chest, few likely could have pegged Garibay as a savage murderer capable of killing members of his own family. But the nature of his crimes, and the small details of his life — hidden as they were amid the rapid-fire arguments between the judge, prosecutor and defense — might explain why no one was there to speak for or against him.
Only Garibay’s youngest sibling, his sister, responded when a prosecutor asked family members if they wanted to give a statement at his sentencing hearing.
She did not “want to reopen old wounds,” said Deputy District Attorney Cesar Rodriguez. Even if the sister did speak, he said, “she couldn’t put the words together to make a statement.”
On Jan. 11, 2021, Garibay killed his elderly mother, Irma Garibay, 65, and his stepfather, Mario Flores-Romero, 73. He beat both of them to death with a baseball bat. He also attacked his younger brother, who lived and reported what happened to arriving Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies.
Nelson Garibay first attacked his mother inside the garage of the home where they all lived. The garage had been his makeshift bedroom; the family had put him there after “years and years of aggression” toward them, said Sheriff’s Detective Esteban Soliz. There, Rodriguez argued during the trial, Nelson Garibay’s hate toward his family only grew.
After killing his mother, Nelson Garibay moved on to the home’s backyard, where he found Flores-Romero and attacked him with the bat.
Soliz said detectives later found a fruit picking tool next to Flores-Romero’s body. They believe Nelson Garibay also used the tool to attack his stepfather.
Nelson Garibay then hit his brother over the head with the bat, leaving him with a deep cut. But his brother escaped.
He then jumped into his mother’s car and fled toward the U.S. border with Mexico — law enforcement tracked him down in the community of Otay Mesa in San Diego County 10 days after the killings.
Threats against his mother and the rest of the family preceded the killings, Rodriguez argued during his murder trial in March.
“Your day is coming,” Rodriguez said Garibay told his mother and brother.
On March 11, a jury took about an hour to convict Nelson Garibay on two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and several sentencing enhancements.
Delgado, the judge, denied an attempted motion by Garibay to delay his sentencing. Garibay’s attorney, Gary Meastas, told the judge he was ready for the day’s hearing and had no reason to put it off further.
Delgado sentenced Garibay to life terms for both murder counts.
He doubled the minimum time Garibay would serve on the enhancements: Typically 25 years to life, Delgado ordered him to serve 50 years to life before the possibility of parole, symbolic rulings given the life sentences already imposed on him.
“This was a very horrendous case,” Delgado said. “A very gruesome case.”
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Soliz said Garibay had shown violence before, not only in threatening his family, but in physical violence he committed, seemingly at random. At the time of the killings, Garibay was on parole for a 2017 attack on his neighbor.
Garibay went after the neighbor as he was getting into his car — his weapon at the time, a baseball bat.
“There were multiple bats inside the house,” Soliz said.
Garibay had struggled to hold down jobs. There were allegations he had schizophrenia. But in a sanity-phase trial prior to Garibay’s murder trial, Rodriguez said a jury found that he would have understood the nature of his violent actions toward his mother and stepfather.
As her son’s aggression toward them increased, Irma Garibay attempted to take out a restraining order against Nelson Garibay. But she never completed the order, both Soliz and Rodriguez said.
Irma Garibay “didn’t have the heart” to put her son out on the street, Rodriguez said.
“He was the oldest of her three children,” Rodriguez said. “She did not want to kick her oldest son out.”
Nelson Garibay stood up immediately after the end of the hearing Thursday before shuffling out of the courtroom.
“Good luck to you,” Delgado said.
