AP
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Michel Escoto stands as the jurors leave the courtroom, April 22, 2014, in Miami. He was accused of murdering his new wife for a $1 million insurance policy and found guilty of first-degree murder. (Peter Andrew Bosch/Miami Herald/MCT via Getty Images)
MIAMI (AP) — A South Florida man was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for killing his wife of four days to collect a $1 million life insurance policy.
A Miami-Dade County judge sentenced Michel Escoto, 42, after a jury convicted him last month of first-degree murder.
Escoto was newly married to Wendy Trapaga, 21, when he strangled and beat her to death in October 2002, prosecutors said. Escoto initially tried to drug Trapaga during their Key West honeymoon and make her death look like an accidental drowning, but Trapaga complained her drink was too chalky. He tried to drown her again several days later in a Jacuzzi at Miami’s Executive Airport Motel, but he couldn’t get her to stay under water. He finally beat her to death with a tire iron outside a warehouse later that night, prosecutors said.