SAN DIEGO, CA — A man who stabbed his mother to death at their Clairemont Mesa apartment was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years to life in state prison.
Jamal Aytes, 32, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the stabbing death of 60-year-old Jacqueline Aytes, who was killed at the apartment they shared on Mesa College Drive.
According to testimony from a preliminary hearing held last year, the victim sustained 27 stab or incise wounds to both the front and back of her head, torso, arms and legs.
Aytes' defense attorney, Christine Brady, and Aytes' family members who attended Wednesday's sentencing hearing said that outside of the homicide, he had never been known as a violent person.
Brady told Superior Court Judge Marian Gaston that she believed mental health issues that went undiagnosed and untreated for too long played a role in what happened.
Police were initially called by Jamal Aytes just after 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 19, 2024, hours before officers found his mother dead.
Aytes had told police his mother was "having a mental breakdown" and had threatened him with a butter knife, according to Lt. Jud Campbell of the San Diego Police Department. Officers responded to the apartment, but concluded after an evaluation of Jacqueline Aytes that "she did not meet the criteria for a mental-health hold" and that no crime had occurred. Jamal Aytes was not at the apartment when officers responded.
About three hours later, Jamal Aytes showed up at a hospital with cuts to his hands, Campbell said. Officers then went back to the Aytes' residence and found the victim dead.
Deputy District Attorney Kristie Nikoletich argued at the preliminary hearing that Aytes' hand injury was most likely sustained when part of the knife broke during the attack, causing his hand to slip and get sliced on the blade. The prosecutor said no knives or other items that could be used by Jacqueline Aytes as weapons were found in the nearby vicinity of her body.
— City News Service
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