CONROE - A Splendora man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder last month in the Feb. 23 beating death of his wife has learned his fate in the 284th state District Court of Judge Cara Wood.

A jury sentenced 29-year-old Jose Israel Garcia, a.k.a. Jose Garcia-Ticas, to life in prison for killing Sabrina Lupe Silva, his common-law wife and the mother of his children.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Detectives and Crime Scene Investigators poured over the single-wide mobile home in the 14500 block of Three S for days after Garcia arrived at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston, driving a pickup with his bloody lifeless wife inside, along with their three children ages 2 to 5 years.

When they arrived at the hospital, Garcia had Silva taken inside the emergency room and then he left and dropped the children off with a relative. He returned to the hospital and when law enforcement was contacted, Garcia first said he found his wife beaten when he went home from work. However, he soon confessed and was arrested.

                              Garcia the killer & Silva his victim

At the time of Garcia's arrest, MCSO Lt. Bill Bucks said Silva was beaten severely "literally, from head to toe." The children were inside the small trailer during the deadly beating, and while it was unclear how much they saw or heard, investigators said evidence showed the beating occurred in more than one room.

In the days that followed, detectives learned the couple had an "on-again off-again" relationship, and reconciled a very short time before the murder. They moved from Houston to the Splendora residence with their children just eight days prior to Silva's death. Garcia drove his dying or dead wife and their children 40 miles to a hospital, passing multiple hospital exits along the way.

Garcia told investigators a simple argument led to the beating inside the isolated mobile home on a dead-end street.