Pre-med student stabbed mother while visiting college, charged with murder, sheriff says

FROST RESISTANT, Fla. — A University of Florida medical student accused of a weekend murder in the stabbing death of his mother in her home had no history of mental illness or substance abuse, a sheriff said Monday.

Emmanuel “Manny” Espinoza stabbed his mother, Elvia, more than 70 times on Saturday after she opened the door of her central Florida home to welcome him for a visit from college, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference.

Espinoza, 21, was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence. He was being held at the Polk County Jail on Monday.

Judd said Espinoza stabbed his mother in the chest and stomach, in places he knew would be most effective because of his medical training. Espinoza then called 911 and confessed to killing his mother, a longtime elementary school teacher in Polk County, between Tampa and Orlando, the sheriff said.

“It’s one of the most bizarre murders we’ve had to deal with in a long time,” Judd said, adding that Espinoza listened to the Jay-Z and Kanye West song “No Church in the Wild” on his earbuds. listened. during the stabbing.

Espinoza, the youngest of Elvia Espinoza’s three children, told investigators he had been thinking about killing his mother for a “long time” and finally worked up the courage to do it while driving from college in Gainesville, North Florida, to the home in Frostproof, according to an arrest affidavit.

When asked why he did it, Espinoza told detectives that his mother had irritated him since childhood, but he loved her, it said.

Judd also noted that Espinoza had no history of mental illness or substance abuse, and that he had been a high school valedictorian described by others as “remarkably brilliant.”

Online court records showed Monday that Espinoza had declined the services of a public defender, but there was no indication he had hired an attorney to represent him. Another document showed he exercised his right not to be interviewed by investigators about the charges he faces.