A Provo man who strangled his father and hid the body in a freezer was sentenced Tuesday to spend possibly the rest of his life in prison.
Omar Carmona admitted in December that he “choked out” his father, 57-year-old Marco Carmona, during an argument on June 8, 2016.
According to plea agreement documents, the younger Carmona had been “suffering from severe, uncontrolled schizophrenia” when he killed his father.
The 29-year-old man pleaded guilty — but mentally ill — to second-degree felony manslaughter and a first-degree felony charge of aggravated robbery, for taking cash out of his father’s wallet after he killed him.
Defense attorney Dustin Parmley asked a judge Tuesday that his client be ordered to be in the custody of state health managers for more treatment before going to prison. Prosecutors asked for prison time.
Fourth District Judge Christine Johnson ultimately ordered Carmona to go straight to prison — finding that while he is mentally ill, it was “not appropriate” to send him to the Department of Human Services, according to court records.
Carmona was sentenced to a five-year-to-life prison term for the aggravated robbery, and a one-to-15 year sentence for manslaughter. Johnson ordered the sentenced to run back-to-back to one another.
Carmona’s case dragged in the court system for two years after he was found not competent to stand trial on the charges in 2016. That finding was changed last September, and he pleaded guilty and mentally ill to the charges a few months later.
He was originally arrested in June 2016 after Provo police searched his family’s home after his mother reported her husband missing. Officers found the father’s body stuffed in a deep freezer.
Charging documents say the son “was possibly operating under delusions” caused by a mental illness. He allegedly told officers that he was arguing with Marco Carmona “because his father did not believe him when he told his father that someone could break into the home and hurt him while he was taking a shower.”
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