The killer of a 10-month-old daughter was informed by her family on Friday that they hoped he would never experience any peace while serving the remainder of his life in prison.
Trevor Marquis Rowe, 30, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release after pleading guilty to the murder of Marion Jester Montoya. He watched as her mother and father delivered victim impact statements.
Rowe, who has been detained at the Lubbock County Detention Center since his arrest on January 8, 2020, admitted to stuffing the kid inside a backpack and abandoning her in his car for hours as she suffocated on January 7, 2020.
Rowe was charged as a result of a Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes Unit investigation that started when first responders were sent to the intersection of 130th Street and Upland Avenue after Rowe called 911 to report that the 10-month-old daughter of his ex-girlfriend was not breathing.
The child was taken to University Medical Center by first responders, where she later passed away.
According to an arrest request, Rowe told police that evening that he had earlier left the baby with the girl’s sleeping mother before coming back to pick it up and take it to his work site around 130th Street and Upland Avenue.
The infant was allegedly “crammed” into a black backpack and put in the front passenger floorboard of his car, according to the arrest warrant.
He claimed that after getting to work, he returned later to see if the kid had emerged from the backpack. He claimed that after putting the kid back in the bag on the floorboard, he kept working until around one o’clock. He opened the rucksack during his lunch break and saw the kid breathing and hardly whimpering.
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The warrant claims that he used a backseat pass-through to place the backpack in his car’s trunk after driving to two stores, a fast food restaurant, and his workplace.
About 4:50 p.m., he returned to the car to check on the child, who had turned white and was not breathing.
The girl asphyxiated, according to the autopsy report, according to the prosecution.
The warrant states that Trevor Rowe “advised he knew that putting a person into a trunk was dangerous to human life.” Trevor Rowe suggested that putting a person in a bag was even riskier.
The warrant, however, doesn’t go into detail about the reasons behind Rowe’s alleged acts. He did admit to authorities that the toddler hadn’t eaten since around 8 o’clock the previous evening.
After the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor, Barron Slack, stated that the evidence demonstrated Rowe’s actions went beyond being careless and negligent.
He said, “You have various methods where the infant will die. “However, in this case, what we knew was that there were extensive, rather than careless, intentional actions taken and that the defendant knew the baby was in poor condition or in an unsafe environment and continued to take hours of intentional action.”
Sunshine Stanek, the district attorney for Lubbock County, declared that the case called for a life sentence.
It was always the intention in this case for the defendant to remain incarcerated, she said. And this petition does that. Every situation is different, but in Lubbock County, we’ll always stand up for the county’s kids and impose severe punishments for such offenses.
After the hearing, Rowe’s attorneys with the Regional Public Defenders for Capital Cases chose not to comment.
When the Lubbock police officers who visited their home informed Veronica Weems of her daughter’s death, she told Rowe that her entire world had fallen apart.
She declared, “I didn’t want to live in the world without Marion by my side.
Rowe was informed by Weems that her shattered heart would never mend and that she hoped his time in prison would serve as a constant reminder of what he had done.
She said, “I hope it haunts you until you die.”
Sheilah Montoya shared with Rowe her long wait for a granddaughter and recalled the 10 priceless months of achievements she had before passing away.
She remarked, “Marion was special. She was incredibly sweet and intelligent. She cherished giving her dad hugs and kisses. She enjoyed dancing and singing with the musical elephant, eating Cheetos and mac & cheese. She liked speaking aloud. She had the brightest, largest brown eyes, with a smile that could light up any space.
She complained to Rowe that his actions that day had prevented her from rejoicing in Marion’s upcoming achievements.
“I will never again sit and rock her, hold her, kiss her, and sing her to sleep at night,” she declared. “An inhumane, heinous act by a person my son called a friend shattered our love and dreams.”
Since Marion’s passing, she explained to Rowe, her son has descended into a deep depression that has kept him apart from his family.
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