30-year Sentence in Killing of Transgendered Woman

[PATERSON, NJ] - A man who beat, stabbed and asphyxiated a transvestite [sic] was sentenced to 30 years in state prison.

Carlos Camacho, 20, of Paterson, will have to serve all 30 years before he is eligible for parole.

At his Superior Court trial, Camacho claimed Victor Pachas, 42, approached him for sex, and he attacked Pachas in revulsion after learning the transvestite was a man [sic].

Camacho said he was walking on a Paterson street on Feb. 25, 2001, when Pachas, dressed as a woman, drove by and offered him $20 for sex. When they arrived at Pachas' apartment, Camacho said, he discovered the other man's [sic] gender.

At his sentencing Friday, Camacho apologized to Pachas' family, as well as his own relatives.

"What happened was not only a terrible lack of judgment, it was a total loss of self control," he said. "The most we can do is to learn from our mistakes so that we can better ourselves."

Authorities said the killing was so brutal that the apartment was splattered with blood, and police could not tell initially how Pachas died. An autopsy determined Pachas was asphyxiated after Camacho stepped on the man's [sic] throat.

Greg Aprile, Camacho's attorney, told Judge Ronald Marmo that he was stunned by the jury's guilty verdict for murder five months ago, saying it was a "textbook" case of passion-provocation manslaughter.

That charge, which carries a five- to 10-year prison term, would have required the jury to believe Camacho acted in the heat of passion from a reasonable provocation.