A California man appeared in court on Friday, urging the driver who murdered his pregnant wife to seek forgiveness and reform, according to Los Angeles Fox station KTTV. James Alvarez instructed defendant Courtney Fritz Pandolfi, 44, to gaze at his and Yesenia Lisette Aguilar’s miracle baby.
“I want you to see her face every single day,” he went on to say. “I want you to share the pain that I have.”
Pandolfi was sentenced to 15 years to life in jail on Friday. She had pleaded guilty to murder, driving under the influence of drugs causing bodily harm with two or more priors, two misdemeanor counts of driving on a suspended license, a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of drugs, and a misdemeanor count of possessing controlled substance paraphernalia.
Orange County prosecutors say Aguilar, 23, spent some of her last moments alive holding hands with Alvarez as they strolled down an Anaheim sidewalk at 7:30 p.m. on August 11, 2020.
But Pandolfi, high on cocaine and meth, got behind the wheel of a white Jeep SUV. She had a long history with this type of stuff. Prosecutors highlighted three prior DUI convictions from 2008, 2015, and 2016. They claimed she received Watson’s advice each time, warning her that if she killed someone while driving drunk, she may face murder charges. In addition, she faced a separate, still-pending case from November 2019 for driving under the influence of drugs.
According to authorities, Pandolfi jumped the curb right before the fatal incident.
“After jumping on to the sidewalk, Pandolfi crashed into a metal newspaper stand and continued driving down the sidewalk, hitting the pregnant woman,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Pandolfi continued to drive down the sidewalk until the Jeep was disabled, travelling a total of 347 ft without ever braking or taking evasive action.”
The couple’s infant daughter survived after an emergency C-section.
“Yesenia’s last act on this earth was to do whatever she could to protect her unborn baby,” stated Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “A beautiful young girl came into the world fighting like hell to survive the tragedy that took her mother’s life, and the fortitude she shown gave her father the will to live. Words of remorse matter little to someone who knew the dangers of driving while high and nevertheless did it. Adalyn Rose’s first breath will be intimately linked to her mother’s last breath, but the little girl will grow up knowing that her mother’s final act on earth was to do everything she could to safeguard her pregnant child. Driving under the influence has repercussions, and Yesenia, James, and daughter Adalyn Rose demonstrate that those costs are more than just statistics; they are lives that should have been shared together, not birthdays spent lamenting the loss of a loving mother.”
On Friday, the 3-year-old child appeared in court beside her father.
According to KTTV, Alvarez stated that their daughter will only know her mother through images and memories.
“What kills me is I can never fill that void,” he went on to say. And I never will. “I will do my best.”
“You had no right to take her away from us,” Aguilar’s cousin, Alejandro Alvarez, said in footage obtained from Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC. “Our family has to commute every single day past that crime scene.”
“I can’t forgive you,” the dead woman’s sister, Mariela Alvarez, stated. “Because it isn’t your first offense.”
“I just want to say how very sorry I am to you guys, your family,” Pandolfi said in her apology, according to Los Angeles NBC station KNBC. “There is not a day that goes by that I do not reflect on what I did and how I could have avoided the terrible catastrophe that occurred. I touched so many people’s lives that day, and because of my sheer selfishness, I know I altered the course of your guys’ life.”