By Matt Wendland

Telesforo Hernandez-Roa of Burien pleaded guilty to second degree murder for stabbing his ex-wife at a Kent park-and-ride in 2014 at a hearing on Tuesday, November 3rd.

Hernandez-Roa, then 41, was arrested on July 20th of 2014 after police found him walking in Seattle’s Seward Park neighborhood covered in blood and with his shirt turned inside out. Upon questioning, he told police that his ex-wife had been cheating on him and that her new lover had been sending him nude photos of her.

With the information from Hernandez-Roa, police located the red Nissan Pathfinder owned by 39-year-old Ruth Castillo-Yanez in a Kent park-and-ride located on the 23400 block of Military Road South. Officers found signs of a struggle outside of the vehicle before locating her body within the SUV. She had been stabbed over 25 times.

Court records show that the couple had been legally divorced for seven months before the murder. The couple’s teenage daughter told police that her parents had often met at the park-and-ride and that she believed her parents had gone out to dinner before the stabbing.

Since the slaying, Telesforo Hernandez-Roa had been held on a $2 million bail. With the guilty plea, he is now scheduled for a December 18th sentencing at the Kent Regional Justice Center. Standard sentencing ranges from 12 to 20 years in prison for second degree murder with a deadly weapon.