The case was dubbed “The Dumbbell Murderess.” In a brutal slaying, Elita “Gabby” Maldonado dropped a 40-pound dumbbell on William Sanford’s head while he slept and stabbed him 38 times.
Maldonado claimed that she killed Sanford, 49, because she heard the voices of her two daughters in her head, saying that he had hurt them. Maldonado’s lawyers asked the jury for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. They said that she had a lifetime history of mental illness and also pointed to methamphetamine use. This was rejected by the jury.
Judge Stefany Miley sentenced Maldonado to 28 years to life in prison.
The Las Vegas Review Journal detailed what happened in the case:
- During a police interrogation, a detective asked Maldonado whether she hit [Sanford] in the head, and she replied, “I believe I did.”
- She said the two began “wrestling” and “tussling” before they ended up in the kitchen, where she grabbed a knife and began stabbing him.
- “I killed a man,” she told the detectives. “I didn’t know that this was going to happen. I didn’t know.”
In another LVRJ story, The Dumbbell Murderess outlined another scenario of what happened:
“Maldonado said she killed Sanford because he was raping her. In interviews with psychologists, she gave other versions of what happened, prosecutors said.
“After Sanford was killed, Maldonado placed a sheet over the window to hide her shadow. She cleaned herself up, got rid of her bloody clothes and carried a cardboard box to the trunk of Sanford’s car, in an attempt to make it appear as if she was moving out of the blood-splattered apartment. She took his keys, credit card and cell phones before driving off in his silver 2003 Cadillac and stopping at a nearby market where she smoked more meth.
“She drove around until the car ran out of gas and then hopped a train she thought was headed to Phoenix.
“She wound up in Wyoming, where she stole a pizza truck and crashed it, before Las Vegas police identified her as the suspect and tracked her down.”