A South Carolina jury found a mother and her boyfriend guilty Friday of murdering her handicapped daughter by leaving her in a hot car, WCIV reported.
The victim’s mother, Rita Pangalangan, was sentenced to 37 years for murder and 20 for great bodily injury while her boyfriend, Larry King Jr., was sentenced to 32 years for murder and 20 for great bodily injury, according to WCIV. The couple will serve the sentences concurrently.
In closing statements for the state, Solicitor Duffie Stone said that the pair tortured Pangalangan’s 13-year-old daughter Cristina by leaving the wheel-chair bound and non-verbal girl inside their sweltering car for a total of five hours and 42 minutes on a hot day in August 2019, WCIV reported. (RELATED: UK Nurse Gets Whole Life Sentence For Murdering 7 Babies)
#SENTENCED | Rita Pangalangan & Larry King Jr are sentenced to over 30 years in the #DisabledTeenDeathTrial. Both defendants have been found GUILTY of murdering Rita’s disabled teen daughter #CristinaPangalangan.#CourtTV Is this justice? ⚖️ pic.twitter.com/rIWLIayOrl
— Court TV (@CourtTV) September 1, 2023
“It’s well over 115 degrees in that car. They come back out and do they check on it? No, what do they do? They hug, they kiss and then they go back inside for another hour and 15 minutes. The child is literally cooking to death in the car,” Stone said.
“This case is a lot of things but it’s not murder,” said Pangalangan’s defense attorney Dayne Phillips, who claimed that Pangalangan and King thought the air conditioner was on. He classified the child’s death as a tragic accident.
“This never should have happened the way it did but Mr. King didn’t kill anybody,” King’s defense attorney Gil Gatch added.
But solicitor Stone disagreed.
“Cristina was totally dependent on Rita for all of those things every day. Not just on Rita’s good days,” he said. “On that day, on that weekend, we know they were on a meth bender.”
Stone noted that this was a pattern of behavior that culminated in murder and that being high on meth is not a defense in South Carolina, WCIV reported.
The jury delivered its verdict in just over two hours.
Pangalangan’s attorney said they will file an appeal.