John Jefferson
Inset: Armando Velador-Padilla. Darla Velador. Background: The location where the murder happened (Images via KTUU).
An Alaska father who claimed his daughter was possessed by the devil when he stabbed her and her dog to death will spend decades in prison.
Armando Velador-Padilla, 50, learned his fate in the death of his daughter, Darla Velador, 22. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson sentenced Velador-Padilla to 60 years in prison with 10 suspended. He was found guilty of second-degree murder and one count of animal cruelty, officials said in a press release.
Velador was killed on April 23, 2021. Her father was hearing voices and “suffering active delusions” that instructed him to “kill the devil that he believed was inside his daughter.” He stabbed her and her dog, Max, repeatedly, killing both and was indicted days later by an Anchorage grand jury.
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Velador-Padilla was diagnosed with schizophrenia but found competent to stand trial and enter his plea of guilty. The court found that Velador-Padilla presented a serious danger to the community due to his mental illness. The court found that the mental illness was a type that is resistant to medication and that Velador-Padilla had a history of not being medically compliant, even while in custody, prosecutors said.
Darla Velador’s obituary said she was one of a kind and left the world a better place. She was a young mother and had her son before graduating from Burchell High School in 2016.
“She had a love of art, music, animals, and was a humanitarian,” the obituary said. “Cooking, entertaining, singing and writing music, comedy, her son, her boyfriend Seth Masterson, and her rescue dog Max were some of her favorite things.”
“Sadly, she left this world prematurely on the afternoon of April 23rd, 2021 alongside her best buddy Max.”
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Adam Mokelke, a former principal at Burchell High School, told Anchorage NBC affiliate KTUU she finished high school despite the challenges of being a young mom.
“One of my first thoughts went to her son,” he said. “She was just such a magnetic and a positive personality. She was loved, and she’s gonna be missed. This is just horrible.”
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