A Kendall man confessed to suffocating his wife and raping her 8-year-old daughter inside a West Miami-Dade home, police say.
Alberto Sierra, 28, was charged early Tuesday with the murder of Gladys Machado and her two young daughters, whose bodies were found inside the bedroom closet of a home last week. Machado was also raped, according to an arrest report.
The shocking details cap a furious police investigation into a brutal killing that shocked South Florida. He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of sexual battery.
Sierra, a convicted felon who was long the main focus of the investigation, confessed after hours of questioning Monday night. Also on Monday, detectives found Machado’s missing car near the Kendall apartment where Sierra was staying with his mother.
According to an arrest report, Sierra accompanied Machado and her daughters to the Mall of the Americas in West Miami-Dade. The on-again-off-again couple began to argue and Sierra, armed with a knife, stabbed her.
Then, he drove the three to the Flagami-area home where the family had lived up until recently. The home was vacant because the couple had split.
According to police, Sierra put the daughters in an adjacent bedroom and suffocated Machado in the master bedroom, then raping her. Then, Miami-Dade police said, Sierra called the oldest daughter to the master bedroom, raping and suffocating her.
Then, police say, Sierra went to the other bedroom and suffocated the youngest daughter as she slept.
The bodies were not found until Tuesday afternoon. A woman who rents an efficiency in the home found Machado and Julia and Daniela Padrino, ages 8 and 4, laid out inside a closet.
A convicted felon with a long rap sheet, Sierra walked into the Kendall substation last Wednesday. After homicide detectives questioned him for several hours, he was allowed to leave. His criminal history includes convictions for drugs and weapons.
But armed with forensic evidence, Miami-Dade homicide detectives called him in for questioning Monday and he confessed.
Sierra has a violent past. Back in 2010, Machado told police he bit her arm during a heated argument. Investigators later found him with 79 grams of Ecstasy, a stolen 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol and ammo.
After he was sentenced to one year of probation, he and Machado were married in October 2011.
That same month, Sierra was also investigated by the state’s child welfare agency after Julia told a teacher that her stepdad had bitten her on the arm.
The girls’ biological father asked for sole custody of the children, but the Department of Children and Families closed out its investigation when Sierra was again arrested in November on charges of possessing a firearm by a convicted felon. At the time, he was living with Machado at the same Flagami-area house where she was later found dead.
Officers seized a rifle, a shotgun and ammo. His probation was also revoked and Sierra later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 364 days in a Miami-Dade jail.
In June, Sierra was released from a Miami-Dade jail and had returned to living with Machado. It is not known when the two separated.
Kendall man confesses to suffocating, raping wife and 8-year-old daughter, police say
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Kendall man confesses to suffocating, raping wife and 8-year-old daughter, police say
