A press release from the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office:
MCHENRY MAN SENTENCED TO 30 YEARS IN PRISON FOR FIRST DEGREE MURDER
Louis A. Bianchi, McHenry County State’s Attorney, announces that twenty-one year old Victor Bandala-Martinez was sentenced to thirty years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for the December 14, 2008 stabbing death of Yair Cabrera.
Witness testimony during the three day bench trial before Judge Joesph Condon revealed that the victim and Bandala-Martinez, who were social acquaintances, were involved in a verbal argument inside a McHenry apartment in the early morning hours of December 14, 2008.
The argument spilled out into an adjacent yard where the defendant stabbed the unarmed victim with a sharp object at least two times.
Yair Cabrera was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby hospital.
The forensic pathologist who examined the victim’s wounds concluded that the 17 year old victim died of hemorrhagic shock due to a stab wound of the heart.
Bandala-Martinez faced a sentence of between twenty to sixty years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant State’s Attorneys Michael Combs and Philip Hiscock.