Gonzalo Curiel sentenced to life in prison for torture, murder of children

A 20-year-old Salinas man received two life sentences for starving and torturing three young children with his former lover, killing two of them, in 2015.

"The beatings, starvings, efforts to exert authority and control are really reflective of a ruthlessness that is rarely seen," said Monterey County Superior Court Judge Pamela Butler as she sentenced Gonzalo Curiel. "... You should never get out of state prison."

During his sentencing, Curiel remained expressionless, occasionally glancing over his shoulder.

In April, it took a jury just an hour to find Curiel guilty of torture, murder and child abuse in the case the prosecutor, Steve Somers, called the worst he's ever tried.

Shaun, 7, and Delylah, 3, Tara died from abuse at the hands of Curiel and their aunt, Tami Joy Huntsman, 41, in Huntsman's Salinas home. The children's sister, referred to as Jane Doe, was alive when found at Huntsman's new home in Plumas County. Her siblings' bodies were later found in a storage locker in Redding.

On Wednesday, Curiel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His attorney, Arthur Dudley, said he will file a notice to appeal, the first step in an appeal.

"I have a signed notice of appeal which I will file today," he said.

Jane Doe, who testified at the trial, is still recovering and had a second surgery last week to fix her jaw, which Huntsman and Curiel had broken, Somers said.

In a letter to the court, she described Shaun and Delylah. She said she missed Shaun's laughter and wished she'd had more time to get to know Delylah.

Both siblings seemed to feel "hurt," "in pain," and not loved, she said in the letter.

"I felt done," she wrote of her last days in Huntsman and Curiel's care.

However, she also forgave both of them in the letter, saying she was "happy to say the case has ended."

She has been adopted by her foster parents and has found solace in religion, Somers said.

"(Jane Doe) thinks the best way to recovery is forgiveness," he said.

Donations, including "thousands of teddy bears," and free medical services have been given to her since she was found curled up freezing on the floor of Huntsman's SUV in Plumas County in winter, her shoulder broken, he said.

"It's amazing how strong she is," Somers said.

Though Curiel was sentenced to life without parole, recent legislation means he will have a parole hearing after serving 25 years behind bars because he was under 18 when the murders were committed, Somers said.

Butler acknowledged this in her sentencing of Curiel but stressed that his crimes warranted a lifetime behind bars.

"The only just sentence is you spend the rest of your life in prison," Butler said. "That is justice. Nothing less would be justice for... these children."

Butler also noted that Curiel made himself sound like a victim in his statement to probation.

But he was the "catalyst that caused the entire situation to become so horrific," she said.

"The no. 1 thing that changed, and the only thing that changed, was you entered their lives," Butler said.

Curiel met Huntsman through her teenage son and, in 2015, moved in with her. They eventually became lovers and, later that year, the abuse started.

In February Huntsman pleaded guilty to charges of torture and murder to avoid the death penalty.

The children had been left in her care following the death of their mother and incarceration of their father.

More: Prosecutor: Children were beaten to death after hungry sister took a bagel

Jane Doe, was 9 at the time of the murders and testified in the case.

In the months before the murders, Shaun, Delylah and Jane Doe were severely starved, beaten, hosed down with cold water and locked up in a tiny bathroom for extended periods of time by Huntsman and Curiel.

After a beating for taking a bagel to feed her hungry siblings, Jane Doe never saw them again. Huntsman and Curiel left town for Redding, where they hid Shaun and Delylah's bodies in a storage locker.

They then moved to a home in Quincy, Plumas County, where Jane Doe was found by a deputy. Authorities arrested Huntsman and Curiel, who told them about the storage locker.

A forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsies on Shaun and Delylah testified that they died from blunt force injuries worsened by malnutrition.

Shaun's weight upon death was about half the normal weight for a boy his age, and there were bruises on his head, legs, back, genitals and one that covered the back of his thigh.

Delylah had succumbed to bleeding in her brain from the abuse, her body starved and covered in bruises, including one that wrapped around her thigh, the pathologist said.

More: Former teachers testify as Salinas child torture, killing trial begins

More: Gonzalo Curiel to be tried as an adult in Salinas child torture, murder case

This story was amended to correct the age of one of the children.