Edward Concepcion Lugo, 41, was sentenced Friday morning to 30 years in prison for the murder of his mother, 77-year old Asuncion Lugo, at the house they shared on East King Street in South Aberdeen a few days before Thanksgiving 2018.
Lugo was arrested after a short standoff with police . His mother was found dead inside their house, stabbed more than 20 times.
Grays Harbor County Prosecutor Katie Svoboda read a letter written by Lugo’s brother Eli about their mother.
“I not only lost a mother, but my best friend and a strong guiding influence in my life. She was a mother until the very end. The glue that held the family together, now forever ripped apart. Her murderer can squawk all he wants about drugs and mental illness, but in reality, he is an evil, sick, twisted, whole-hearted monster — a bad seed who brutally murdered a tiny 77-year-old woman who gave him life, clothed him, fed him, handed him money and put a roof over his miserable head. It makes me sick to imagine her final moments on earth.”
After reading the letter, Svoboda asked the judge for the maximum sentence, saying Lugo earned every day of it.
Lugo’s lawyer, David Hatch, addressed the judge and said, “It’s human nature to want to understand why things happen. This is a case that has no motive. I don’t think Mr. Lugo completely understood what he had done until he sobered up. That’s probably the worst thing about methamphetamine. It takes away a person’s free agency. They do things they never otherwise would do. Sometimes horrible things.”
Hatch added that Lugo seems like a “pretty decent person” when he’s on his medications and added that he’s “incredibly remorseful.”
Before he was sentenced, Lugo read his own statement saying he accepted his guilty plea and that he was sincerely remorseful.
Lugo had filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea on Oct. 18 saying he had been coerced by his original attorney to enter the plea when he was not mentally capable of doing so. He was assigned Hatch, and withdrew that motion on Jan. 28.
“I should have never started using drugs in the first place. Obviously, I wasn’t myself that day and I realize I made a terrible mistake,” he said.
“I’m really sorry for all the unnecessary pain that I caused. … I grew up in a loving family. My mom was a very nice lady. I really loved my mom,” he said with his voice cracking.
“I wish to god she was still alive. I wish this was all a bad dream. Sometimes I wish it was me who died that day,” he added.
Before handing down the maximum sentence of 30 years, the most he can mete out under sentencing rules, Grays Harbor Superior Court Judge David Edwards said, “This crime was committed with as much or more utter brutality as any crime that’s ever come before me.”
