45 years for Des Plaines man who stabbed ex-girlfriend to death in Bensenville

A Des Plaines man was sentenced Monday to 45 years in prison for stabbing his ex-girlfriend - the mother of his daughter - outside her Bensenville home in an attack fueled by his jealousy and rage.

Victor Tornez-Sanchez, now 29, "essentially orphaned his only child," DuPage County Assistant State's Attorney Nicole Wilkes-English told Judge John Kinsella. She said it was ironic, given that in a presentence investigation report, Tornez-Sanchez discussed how he had been abandoned by his mother as a child.

Olivia Renteria-Bravo, 32, was stabbed outside her home on June 18, 2017, on the 700 block of Parkside Lane.

Wilkes-English said Tornez-Sanchez blamed his actions in part on getting drunk that weekend.

She also noted several domestic violence calls involving the two, including one on a highway where a maintenance worker called police to say Tornez-Sanchez was beating the victim; one in May 2015 where he hit her in the face and her sister in the head with a piece of a crib; and one in June 2015 where he was accused of entering her home while she was away, slashing cushions on her couches and smashing a flat-screen television.

In applying for an order of protection, Renteria-Bravo wrote that Tornez-Sanchez "is going to kill me, burn me and hurt me," Wilkes-English said.

Authorities say Torrez-Sanchez lay in wait in the parking lot of a nearby banquet hall; changed out of a white shirt to dark clothing so he wouldn't be readily seen in the dusk; texted people to find out when Renteria-Bravo was going to be home; and approached Renteria-Bravo on the sidewalk as she returned home from an outing with her boyfriend.

He stabbed her six or seven times in her chest and torso. Their 5-year-old daughter was home at the time, but did not see the attack.

Witnesses who aided the injured woman told police she said "Victor stabbed me."

"It was all because ... this defendant could not take 'no' for an answer," Wilkes-English said.

Tornez-Sanchez apologized to his victim's relatives. His attorney noted Tornez-Sanchez has undergone alcohol- and substance-abuse counseling while in jail. He had used drugs, including cocaine, since he was a teenager.

"Please have mercy on me and fashion a sentence which would allow me to have some life beyond the prison cell," he asked Kinsella.

But Kinsella said the most "heart-wrenching and disturbing" aspect of the case was that Tornez-Sanchez had planned to make his own child grow up without both parents - by killing her mother and by his either escaping or being imprisoned.

Tornez-Sanchez pleaded guilty in May to first-degree murder.