MADISON, Wis. (Court TV) — A man who pleaded guilty to killing his younger mistress in the moments before his trial began has been sentenced to life in prison but with a chance of supervised release.
Jose Gonzalez enters court for his sentencing hearing on Jan. 13, 2025. (Court TV)
Jose Luis Gonzalez Sr., 73, pleaded no contest to first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Dora Gonzalez-Zarate, 31, who was found shot to death in a pool of blood inside her mobile home on May 24, 2022. The mandatory sentence is life in prison, but Gonzalez was given the possibility of supervised release after 23 years. He will be allowed to apply for release in August 2045, when he will be 94 years old.
Deputies who first responded to the scene described the victim as being on her back on the kitchen floor, dead from a gunshot wound to her head. Witnesses placed Gonzalez’s distinctive blue 2008 Dodge Caravan with black rims at the victim’s home on the day of the murder, and multiple people interviewed by investigators said that Gonzalez had been in a romantic relationship with the victim, but that she had been trying to leave.
When police conducted a traffic stop on Gonzalez’s vehicle on May 24, his wife was with him in the car. He denied a sexual relationship with the victim and said he hadn’t seen her since the day before. Gonzalez also denied changing his clothes on the day of the murder, but surveillance video obtained by investigators shows Gonzalez wearing different clothes earlier in the day. The clothes he wore in the surveillance video were later found wet in the washing machine at his home.
Court documents reviewed by Court TV indicate that “numerous messages and data were deleted” from Gonzalez’s phone, and “it was also discovered that it appears Jose downloaded information about how to wipe data from a phone.” When investigators gained access to the messages sent between Gonzalez and Gonzalez-Zarate, the victim “made a comment to Jose that she was scared and hopes she doesn’t get killed.”
At Gonzalez’s sentencing hearing on Jan. 13, the victim’s family remembered her as a loving mother to six children, two of whom have special needs. “I forgive him, but my heart doesn’t decide it, it’s what God decides,” one of the victim’s daughters said at the hearing. “[My mom] was everything for my siblings, and sometimes they come up to me crying.” Cesar Gonzalez, the victim’s brother, told the judge, “What he did can’t be forgiven.”
