PHOENIX — A young man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to fatally stabbing a man to death on Halloween outside of a Phoenix residence.
David Orozco, 20, was recently sentenced to about 10 years in the Arizona Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to a charge of manslaughter for the death of 21-year-old Jose Garcia Ávila, records show.
Police records show Avila sustained up to 40 stab wounds when he was assaulted near 10th Avenue and Buckeye Road on Oct. 31, 2021. A woman was also injured during the stabbing.
Orozco fled from the scene and was arrested by Phoenix police a couple of days later. The suspect and victim had been roommates and the two men got into a fight before the Halloween stabbing, police said.
“(Ávila) was a kind-hearted person, he was very sweet, very loving, [a] family-oriented man,” one of the victim's friends told 12News in 2021.
The defendant pleaded guilty in Maricopa County Superior County to manslaughter and aggravated assault earlier this summer before he was sentenced in late August.
Orozco was credited 664 days for time already spent in jail before his conviction, meaning he's projected to be released from prison by November 2030.
*Editor's Note: The above video is from an earlier broadcast.*
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