A Texas killer had a chilling reaction when police questioned him about the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend in April 2021.
“I would do it again,” Andres Tarnava, 39, told police in the interrogation room after admitting to shooting Marisol Klingelhofer four times in the face.
Tarnava also said he dismembered her before placing her body parts in barrels on his property so he could burn them beyond recognition.
When Texas Rangers asked why he did it, Tarnava said he suspected Klingelhofer of stealing his late father’s military ID and Social Security card.
“You’re not just going to take something from me and just let it go,” he told investigators in a recorded confession. “My father was my world and I would do it again.”
After being convicted of murder in June, Tarnava appeared in court Monday where he was sentenced to life in prison, San Antonio ABC affiliate reported KSAT 12.
Klingelhofer was a mother, and her daughter Priscilla Gonzalez spoke out in June 2021 after her murder.
‘We didn’t get to say goodbye. “I didn’t get to give her that last hug and tell her I love you,” she said Fox News San Antonio.
Andres Tarnava, 39, was convicted in June of murdering his ex-girlfriend in April 2021. This week he was given a life sentence for the crime
Marisol Klingelhofer, 49, was a mother and was killed by Tarnava because he suspected she had stolen his late father’s Social Security card and military ID
Gonzalez revealed that at the time of her death she had an 11-year-old son, who is now about 14 years old.
“He’s the smallest and he hasn’t even seen her,” Gonzalez said. “And he has no mother or father now.”
Prosecutors said Tarnava killed the 49-year-old mother on April 26, 2021. San Antonio Express News reported.
Ruben Arguello, a friend of both Klingelhofer and Tarnava, testified that he was with Klingelhofer that day in his green Ford Expedition.
Arguello said Tarnava approached them brandishing a gun. He jumped out of his car and started running, assuming Klingelhofer was right behind him.
However, according to him, she did not move. Arguello then turned around and saw Tarnava shoot her twice.
“I saw him pull out something, it looked like a gun, and I shot her twice,” Arguello said. “I heard her say, ‘No, no.’ He shot her once and I heard her again and he shot her again and heard nothing.”
Tarnava then dragged her to his GMC Yukon and drove away, according to his testimony.
Tarnava admitted to Texas Rangers that he shot, dismembered and burned Klingelhofer
Another witness and friend of the victim testified about the same thing.
Carlos Hernandez said Tarnava shot Klingelhofer three or four times and threatened him and Arguello not to say anything.
Arguello said Tarnava later told him he took her to his home in Lytle, on the outskirts of San Antonio, where he “cut her up and burned her.”
Tarnava later confessed to this under questioning by Texas Ranger Jesse Perez in a room at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
In the defense’s closing arguments, they tried to cast doubt on the confession because Tarnava reportedly had to wait four hours before being questioned.
Jurors watched the confession video during the trial and saw Tarnava fall asleep and snore before Perez and two other officers read him his Miranda rights.
“Marisol is gone,” Perez told Tarnava on the video. ‘She disappeared. Why?’
“You don’t take the ID and social security of someone’s deceased family,” Tarnava replied. ‘My father did not die in vain. He served his country.’
Tarnava property in Lytle, Texas, where Klingelhofer’s remains were found in two metal barrels
Tarnava said Klingelhofer stole these items a month before he shot her, adding that she denied her alleged role in the theft.
He was convinced she had thrown away prized possessions from his father’s time as a U.S. Marine.
‘I loved my father. You would do the same for your father if you loved him like I do,” he said during interrogation. “I just wanted to whine in her ass.”
Jurors also saw photos of the two metal barrels containing Klingelhofer’s burned bone fragments.
John Servello, a forensic anthropologist, testified at the trial that he was confident that at least some of the bones were human.
“On the femur, everything on that looks like a femoral shaft. … I feel comfortable (in saying) that everything about it suggests a human femur,” Servello said under cross-examination by defense attorney Cornelius Cox.