A Cook County judge sentenced an Elgin man to 44 years in prison Monday, two weeks after the man pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing his wife during a quarrel.
The sentencing came almost three months after Hector M. Soto, 36, turned down a judge’s offer that would have included a 40-year prison term for the March 1998 killing of his wife, Delma Iris Soto, in the couple’s Elgin apartment.
When he rejected the offer, Soto said he hoped to raise a second-degree murder defense at trial. But on Nov. 1, Soto reversed course and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
Despite a prosecutor’s request for a longer term, Associate Judge Richard A. Kavitt sentenced Soto to 44 years.
Investigators said that Soto’s wife had left the couple’s home early on the day of the killing after fighting with her husband. When she returned that afternoon, investigators said, Soto attacked her, stabbing her in the neck and face with a kitchen knife.
