Miguel Cano was thirteen years old when he murdered his mother
According to court documents Miguel Cano would fatally stab his mother as she lay in his bed. One of the stab wounds would go straight through her chest into the bed. After killing his mother Miguel Cano would stay in the home
The next day a contractor came to work on the home and discovered Miguel Cano sitting under the home covered in blood and called the police
Miguel Cano who is on the autism spectrum would ultimately be sentenced to twenty three years in prison
Miguel Cano Photos
Miguel Cano Now
Miguel Cano Sentencing
Greenville teen accused in the gruesome stabbing death of his mother was sentenced to 23 years behind bars.
Miguel Cano was 13 when his 44-year-old mother, Isabel Cristina Zuluaga, 44, was killed Aug. 31, 2015. Officials said she was stabbed more than 28 times in their home.
Charged as an adult, Cano, now 17, pleaded guilty last week to the murder of his mother.
Prosecutors, led by 13th Circuit Solicitor Walter Wilkins, asked for the maximum sentence of 30 years. Monday, Judge Letitia Verdin sentenced Cano to 23 years in prison.
“We were trying to get a result that is satisfactory to our society at the time and moment that we’re in right now and I think that we did that through light of discussion, conversation, argument and presentation,” Wilkins said.
Sheriff Steve Loftis said at the time of Cano’s arrest, a contractor, who was in a crawl space under Zuluaga’s house on Hipps Avenue on Sept. 1, 2015, saw Cano sitting under the house. After talking to him, the contractor said he asked Cano to leave.
The contractor said that after Miguel Cano left, he continued to crawl under the home, and he saw blood coming through cracks in the floor. He said he went into the house and found Zuluaga’s body in a bedroom. (To read the contractor’s firsthand account, click here)
Deputies found the boy a few hours later walking along Woodruff Road, headed toward Spartanburg County. Loftis said after Cano was in custody he “readily admitted to stabbing his mother the night before” after he was in custody.
The 17-year-old spoke Monday afternoon in court.
“There are many people that my crime impacted very negatively, and to you, I am sorry,” he said. “I am not happy to have hurt you. Some have lost a good friend. Others, a good family member, and I am ashamed to have caused it.”
Verdin expressed sympathy for the family.
“I will tell you,” she said. “This is probably the most difficult case I’ve ever had.”
Cano’s defense team argued his Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis was partly to blame for the way he acted during the crime.
“He certainly didn’t have the ability to kind of take a look at himself and look at his own deficits,” said public defender Christopher Scalzo, who represented Cano on Monday.
Loftis said Miguel Cano told deputies that he went to bed after killing his mother. He said when the contractor arrived in the morning, it startled him and he hid under the home.
Loftis said there were defensive wounds on Zuluaga’s body. He said she was about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and her son is about the same height.
The sheriff, said that at the time of Cano’s arrest, he showed no remorse and did not give a motive for the stabbing.
