“He said: ‘You know I have wanted to kill my mother for many, many years because she got on my nerves,’” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a video posted April 6 to Facebook.
“Then we asked him: What’s your relationship with your mother? He said: ‘About an 8 and out of 10,’ that he really loved her. But she irritated him and he made up his mind today on his way from Gainesville that he would murder her. And that’s exactly what he did.”
The “vicious” killing happened around 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 6, at a home in Frostproof, about a 165-mile drive southeast from Gainesville, where the UF campus is located.
The victim, 46-year-old Elvia Espinoza, is a “well-loved” second grade teacher at Ben Hill Griffin Elementary School in Frostproof, officials said.
Her son, Emmanuel Espinoza, 21, has been charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence, jail records show.
He called 911 and confessed to the operator who answered, officials said.
“He was coming from Gainesville to Frostproof for a family event for a grandparent this week, and he asked his mom if he could stay with her,” Judd said.
“He arrived about 2 o’clock … he knocked on the front door and when mom opened the door he began to stab her and he stabbed her many times. She ran from him. She was talking to a family member on the phone and … he stabbed her until she fell down and died.”
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