Marvin Dominguez pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the 1999 murder of Patricia Ann Haumacher and then burying her body in the backyard of their shared rental home in Frederiksted.
During a private session in Presiding Territorial Court Judge Maria Cabret’s chambers on Wednesday, Dominguez, 26, pleaded to second-degree murder. The plea was entered in chambers because attorneys were concerned that if the government refused the offer, media coverage would have tainted potential jurors.
By entering the plea, Dominguez avoided a March 18 trial for first-degree murder and the possibility of life in prison. Instead, the New Jersey resident now faces between five and 20 years behind bars.
Dominguez admitted to killing Haumacher, 30, sometime in October 1999. He turned himself in to police a month later after telling acquaintances that Haumacher had left the island. Haumacher’s family in New Jersey reported her missing on Nov. 9, 1999, after not hearing from her for more than a month. Four days later, V.I. police interviewed Dominguez, who told investigators she was having family problems and had left the island. Acquaintances of Dominguez and Haumacher said she was last seen around Oct. 8, 1999.
Dominguez turned himself in on Nov. 29, soon after authorities queried him about Haumacher’s whereabouts. The next day officials exhumed Haumacher’s body, bound and gagged inside a duffel bag, from a shallow grave in the yard of the house the two had shared in Estate Two Brothers. An autopsy concluded that the victim was killed by manual strangulation and had been dead for one to two months.
According to court transcripts, Dominguez and Haumacher had a loud fight on Oct. 12, that culminated in her death.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 11.
