Prison for woman who killed daughter

A Waukegan woman who stabbed her 6-year-old daughter to death in 2008 was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday in Lake County Circuit Court.

Nelly Vasquez-Salazar, 27, pleaded guilty Dec. 13 to stabbing her daughter, Evelyn Vasquez, 11 times in the neck, face and arms on April 7, 2008.

When Waukegan police questioned Vasquez-Salazar on the day of the killing, officers said she originally told them her daughter had been possessed by a demon and had tried to kill her.

Police said Vasquez-Salazar told them Evelyn had come into her bedroom in the middle of the night with a large butcher knife and said she was going to kill her.

Vasquez-Salazar said she took the knife away from the girl, stabbed her repeatedly, then slashed her own wrists in an attempt to commit suicide.

She then went to a neighbor’s apartment seeking help, and police found Evelyn’s body on the floor of her mother’s apartment.

Police said Vasquez-Salazar told them she thought her daughter had been possessed by a demon because she had recently begun sleepwalking.

Her attorney was expected to present an insanity defense if the case had gone to trial, but she agreed to plead guilty on the day jury selection was scheduled to begin.

After entering the plea in exchange for a promise her sentence would not exceed 30 years, Vasquez-Salazar fired her original attorney and filed a motion claiming she wanted to withdraw the guilty plea.

Public Defender Joy Gossman was appointed to represent Vasquez-Salazar, and she told Circuit Judge John Phillips on Wednesday she had met with Vasquez-Salazar several times in the last two months.

Gossman said Vasquez-Salazar had agreed to withdraw her motion to change her guilty plea, and Assistant State’s Attorney Suzanne Willet had agreed a sentence of 25 years should be imposed.

Phillips told Vasquez-Salazar she will have to serve all 25 years of the sentence before she is eligible for parole, and is likely to be deported to her native Mexico once the sentence is complete.

Vasquez-Salazar could have faced a sentence of life in prison had she been convicted after a trial.

Phillips told Vasquez-Salazar he would recommend state prison officials assign her to an institution where she could receive mental health treatment.