Tampa Teen Sentenced to Custody, Probation for Murder of Attacker

A Hillsborough circuit judge sentenced 18-year-old Yajaira Jimenez-Castillo to prison this week for killing Ramon Ramirez Arzola three years ago when she was just 15. Jimenez stabbed Ramirez 74 times. She will likely serve under three years in a correctional facility on these charges.

Despite the defense claim of self-defense, a jury convicted the teenager of second-degree murder. The judge clearly considered both the circumstances of Ramirez’s death as well as Jimenez’s personal history in determining her sentence.

According to trial testimony, Ramirez tried to grab Jimenez’s breast, called her a dirty name and pulled a knife. Jimenez thought she was about to be raped. She had been raped repeatedly as a child by two older relatives, who were never prosecuted.

She told authorities that Ramirez tried to rip her clothes and threw her to the ground. She cut her hands, trying to grab his knife. She said she was scared and doesn’t know why she stabbed Ramirez.

Witnesses saw Jimenez straddled over Ramirez’s body that night. She was, however, drunk and high and doesn’t recall how many times she cut her attacker.

A psychiatrist testified in her defense that she may have felt a heightened sense of danger because of post-traumatic stress disorder related to her childhood abuse.

“I wish it was me that was dead,” Jimenez told her lawyers. “And I wish he was here, so he could go through this and I wouldn’t.”

Jimenez reportedly tried to blind herself with a pencil as a child so she couldn’t see her rapists. She began using drugs at age 10; started drinking shortly after that. The daughter of a migrant worker mother, Jimenez was not in school consistently as a child.

A psychiatrist said that Jimenez was like a frightened animal in her jail cell – terrified and confused. She did eventually tell a jail ministry volunteer about her childhood. That volunteer has now taken Jimenez in, helped her get a job, perform 455 community service hours, get her GED and get accepted into technical school.

School will have to wait, however. The judge sentenced Jimenez to 15 years in prison, but will be required to serve less than three years in custody (at a facility for young offenders). After that time is served, Jimenez’s sentence will be suspended and she will be placed on probation.

The state requested a 15-year sentence; the defense asked for no additional time to be ordered served.