Julio Garay
A man who ambushed his wife and murdered her as she was shielded her children from gunfire was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday. The judge ripped into defendant Julio Garay, 50, calling him a “self-absorbed narcissist,” according to KSEE/KGPE.
Garay was convicted in October. Before the murder, Calley Jean Garay, 32, fled from her estranged husband and got a restraining order against him, but he tracked her down and ambushed her while she was going to a doctor’s appointment on July 14, 2020, prosecutors said. She shielded her children as she was fatally shot.
Defendant Garay made the victim’s life hell before they separated. He beat her more than 100 times, even kicking her with steel-toed boots, the judge said, according to KSEE/KGPE and KFSN.
Defendant Garay used other weapons, including a chainsaw blade and a fire poker, when abusing Calley, the judge said.
By murdering her, Julio Garay cut short Calley’s attempts to start a new life without him.
“He enslaved her and treated her like an animal,” the victim’s attorney Baldwin Moy previously told The Fresno Bee. Julio Garay isolated her from her family, prohibiting her from communicating with them. Nonetheless, Calley was hopeful, planning for a new life. “She saw light at the end of the tunnel.”
Judge Dale Blea said that Calley’s first thought was to protect her children in her final moments.
“In the end, this trial was about a selfless mother and wife who sacrificed everything in an attempt to save her family,” the judge said, according to KFSN. “It is also about an evil, self-absorbed narcissist who appeared laser-focused on destroying everything that was important to Calley.”
[Booking photo via Madera County Department of Corrections]