MIAMI (Court TV) — A Florida jury must decide whether to recommend that a man be put to death or serve the rest of his life in prison for killing his estranged wife and her two young daughters.
Alberto Sierra sits in court on Sept. 30, 2026. (Court TV)
Alberto Sierra, 42, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, burglary, kidnapping and abuse of a dead body in the deaths of his estranged wife, Gladys del Carmen Sierra, and her daughters, identified in court records as J.P., 6, and D.P., 4. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, so they are presenting a full case to the jury even though the defendant admitted his guilt.
In documents reviewed by Court TV, prosecutors said that Alberto Sierra and his estranged wife argued while shopping in November 2012, prompting him to pull a knife and kidnap them. The defendant drove the group — which included J.P. and D.P., whom he was not biologically related to — back to a home the family had all shared in Miami.
Once at the home, investigators said that Alberto Sierra locked the children in one bedroom and then took Gladys del Carmen Sierra to the master bedroom, CBS News Miami reported. Then, prosecutors said, the defendant used a plastic bag to asphyxiate his wife before sexually assaulting her body. “He terrorized her. He tortured her,” prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said in court.
After killing his estranged wife, prosecutors said, Alberto Sierra used plastic bags to kill the two children and sexually assaulted the 6-year-old. Before fleeing the scene, prosecutors said, Sierra placed the bodies in a closet.
First responders found the bodies on Nov. 13, 2012, after a call about a “man down” with an unknown problem. Paramedic Richard Ramos testified on Wednesday that he knew something was off as soon as he entered the property. “There was a smell of decomposition, possibly bodies in the process of decomposition,” he said. When he opened the door to a closet, he found the three victims. “It was shocking, because here we were thinking that we were responding to one person down, and we open the closet, we witness it was an adult female and two children in there.”
Ramos said the victims had “obvious” signs of death, so he did not try to resuscitate them.
Alberto Sierra’s defense said in its opening statement that the defendant suffered profound brain damage and is missing part of his frontal lobe, the Miami Herald reported. His attorney said that Alberto Sierra is prone to seizures and was diagnosed with diabetes, which has affected his brain.
Prosecutors have signaled they plan to play for the jury jail calls in which the defendant discusses the murders with friends and family.
