A 19-year-old man broke down emotionally this Tuesday before a Miami-Dade court as he confronted face to face the man who, when he was just five years old, took away his mother and his two younger sisters.
Michael Padrino Jr. took the stand during the sentencing phase of the trial against Alberto Sierra, the 42-year-old Cuban who pled guilty to the murder of Gladys Machado, 29, and her daughters Julia and Daniela Padrino, aged six and three respectively, in November 2012.
The moment was captured by media outlets, and left several members of the jury crying in the courtroom.
"You took them away. You know you did."
During his victim impact statement, Padrino first spoke to the jury about the future that his family was never able to have.
“We were supposed to have more time together, more birthdays, more parties, more days when nothing important happened... arguing over trivial things, sitting around doing nothing... those were the best moments,” the young man stated.
Then he turned directly to Sierra, who remained impassive in his chair, and shouted: “You! You took them! You know you did. You know what you did!”
The lawyers had to escort him out of the room immediately, while the jurors, many of whom were in tears, were taken to another room.
The pain of a son and a brother
Before confronting Sierra, Padrino described to the jury what it meant to lose his mother and sisters when he was just starting to live.
"My sisters were supposed to grow up, have their own lives, meet people, make friends, fall in love, create their own memories... and my mom was supposed to be there for all of that," she stated.
He also expressed what he would have said to each of them: “I would tell my mom thank you for everything she did for us, and I would tell Julia to remember how intelligent she was and how she made sure everyone knew it, and I would tell Daniela that I still remember her just as she was. I would tell them all that I love them,” he stated before the court.
The decision that saved his life
On that November 10, 2012, Michael was five years old and stayed with his great-grandmother in Homestead to watch the television show "Caso Cerrado," while his mother and sisters went shopping with Sierra.
That decision saved his life.
In a fit of jealousy because Machado received calls from another man, Sierra took the family under threat to the home they had shared in the Flagami neighborhood, where he tied Machado's hands and suffocated her with a plastic bag from the Sedano's supermarket chain, before doing the same to the two girls.
The three bodies were found inside a closet three days later, when a neighbor alerted the police due to the smell. Sierra's recorded confession—played to the jury on Monday—included phrases like "I don't know. I went crazy".
Other voices that broke the silence
The girls' father, Michael Padrino Sr., also submitted a written statement to the jury.
"I write because my daughters no longer have a voice in this world. Their lives, their childhood, their innocence, and every year they should have lived were taken away from them. For 14 years, I have carried a pain that no parent should ever have to endure," he confessed, visibly affected.
Channon Castro, Machado's best friend, concluded her speech with a statement directed at the surviving son: “Mikey deserved to have his mother and his sisters by his side. Nothing can take away the pain they carry, but I hope that by speaking of who they were, their lives will never be forgotten.”
The decision that the jury now faces
Sierra pleaded guilty in August 2026 to three counts of first-degree murder, among other offenses, without a plea agreement with the prosecution.
The current trial does not determine his guilt, but rather the sentence that will be imposed on him: life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty.
Under the reformed Florida law in 2023, a favorable vote from at least eight of the 12 jurors is sufficient to recommend the death penalty.
The defense, which begins its case this Wednesday, argues as a mitigating factor that Sierra suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 12 that affected his frontal lobe, a region associated with impulse control.
The jury has not yet issued its recommendation.
Filed under: