A Texas killer had a bone-chilling response to police when they questioned him in April 2021 about the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.
‘I would do it again,’ Andres Tarnava, 39, told police in interrogation room after admitting he shot Marisol Klingelhofer four times in the face.
Tarnava also said he dismembered her before placing her body parts into barrels on his property so he could burn them beyond recognition.
When Texas Rangers asked why he did it, Tarnava said he suspected Klingelhofer of stealing his dead father’s military ID and Social Security card.
‘You aren’t just going to take something from me and just let it go,’ he told investigators in a recorded confession. ‘My dad was my world and I would do it again.’
After Tarnava was convicted of murder in June, he appeared in court Monday where he was sentenced to life in prison, reported San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT 12.
Klingelhofer was a mother, and her daughter Priscilla Gonzalez spoke out in June 2021 after her murder.
‘We didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to give her that last hug and tell her I love you,’ she told Fox News San Antonio.
Andres Tarnava, 39, was convicted in June of murdering his ex-girlfriend in April 2021. This week he was given a life sentence for the crime
Marisol Klingelhofer, 49, was a mother and was killed by Tarnava over his suspicions that she stole his late father’s Social Security card and military ID
Gonzalez revealed she had an 11-year-old son at the time of her death, who is around 14 years old now.
‘He’s the littlest one and he didn’t even get to see her,’ Gonzalez said. ‘And he’s now without a mother or a father.’
Prosecutors said Tarnava killed the 49-year-old mother on April 26, 2021, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Ruben Arguello, a friend of both Klingelhofer and Tarnava, testified that he was with Klingelhofer that day in his green Ford Expedition.
Arguello said Tarnava approached them brandishing a gun. He jumped out of his car and started running, assuming Klingelhofer was right behind him.
She didn’t move though, according to him. Arguello then turned to see Tarnava shoot her twice.
‘I saw him pull out something, looked like a gun, and shot her twice,’ Arguello said. ‘I heard her say, “No, no.” He shot her once and I heard her again and he shot her again and didn’t hear nothing.’
Tarnava then dragged her to his GMC Yukon and drove off, per his testimony.
Tarnava confessed to Texas Rangers that he shot, dismembered and burned Klingelhofer
Another witness and friend of the victim testified to much the same.
Carlos Hernandez said Tarnava shot Klingelhofer three or four times and threatened him and Arguello not to say anything.
Arguello said Tarnava later told him he took her to his home in Lytle, which is on the outskirts of San Antonio, where he ‘cut her up and burned her.’
Tarnava later confessed to just that under questioning from Texas Ranger Jesse Perez in a room at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
In the defense’s closing argument, they tried to cast doubt on the confession because Tarnava allegedly had to wait four hours before he was interrogated.
Jurors watched the confession video during the trial and saw Tarnava fall asleep and snore before Perez and two other officers read him his Miranda rights.
‘Marisol is gone,’ Perez told Tarnava on the video. ‘She disappeared. Why?’
‘You don’t take somebody’s dead family’s ID and Social Security,’ Tarnava answered. ‘My father didn’t die in vain. He served his country.’
Tarnava’s property in Lytle, Texas, where Klingelhofer’s remains were found in two metal barrels
Tarnava said Klingelhofer stole these items a month before he shot her, adding that she denied her alleged role in the theft.
He was convinced that she threw away cherished possessions from his father’s time as a US Marine.
‘I loved my father. You’d do the same thing for your father if you loved him like I did,’ he said during the interrogation. ‘I just wanted to whoop her ass.’
Jurors also saw photographs of the two metal barrels containing Klingelhofer’s burnt bone fragments.
John Servello, a forensic anthropologist, testified during the trial that he was confident at least some of the bones were human.
‘On the femur, everything on that looks like a femur shaft. … I feel comfortable [saying] everything about it suggests human femur to me,’ Servello said under cross examination from defense attorney Cornelius Cox.
