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A Mesa man who claimed he had no idea what caused his on-again-off-again girlfriend to “turn purple” and die in December of 2009 was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Maricopa County Superior Court officials announced this afternoon.
According to court documents obtained by New Times, a family member of Dartanion Terrial Stroud’s called Gilbert police on December 6, saying Stroud told another family member in Florida that he killed his 26-year-old former girlfriend, Angelita Francisca Montano.
Police from Gilbert and Mesa started a search for Stroud and Montano, but the pair weren’t at the victim’s last-known address.
Within hours of police receiving the 9-1-1 call from Stroud’s family, Stroud and Montano popped up at the emergency room at Banner Desert Medical Center, where Montano was purple, unconscious, and unresponsive to treatment. She died within an hour of getting to the hospital.
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When Stroud got to the hospital with his purple-faced former flame, security in the emergency room detained him, and Gilbert police showed up to find out what caused the woman’s death.
Stroud admitted to being there when the victim’s face turned purple, but claimed to have no idea what caused it.
Police, however, got a pretty good idea when they found strangulation marks on Montano’s neck.
Stroud, who has a 9-month-old child with the victim, was ordered by a judge to stay away from her earlier in the year, stemming from an August domestic-violence complaint.
