Woman who fatally shot boyfriend is off to prison. Family says she’s ‘heartless’

More than six years ago, Aymee Sanchez’s son Alejandro “Coco” Sanchez was gunned down outside his Hialeah home. On Monday, she faced her son’s killer in a Miami courtroom — pouring out her grief.

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“My sentence started,” Sanchez said in between tears. “I don’t get a judge, I don’t get a jury. I don’t get an appeal. And there is no release date for me. My sentence is waking up every morning knowing my son is still gone. My sentence is carrying a pain in my chest that nobody can see. My sentence is loving a child I can no longer touch. That is my life sentence.”

Moments before, Karina Corbalan, 29, pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge stemming from Alejandro Sanchez’s killing. Corbalan and Alejandro Sanchez were dating at the time of the shooting.

Corbalan’s change of plea, which was announced the same day jury selection was slated to begin for her trial, was the result of a deal with prosecutors. In exchange, Corbalan received a 25-year prison sentence and will have to complete 10 years of probation upon her release.

Corbalan gunned down Alejandro Sanchez, 28, on March 2, 2020. His mother said he was shot at 15 times in front of his house at 5600 block of West 21st Ave. He was shot in the chest several times and later died at Ryder Trauma Center.

Corbalan will get credit for the more than six years she served awaiting trial at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

‘You have no heart’

Sanchez, choking up and holding back tears, lamented her son’s loss. In six years, she said she has constantly relived the trauma of seeing her beloved Coco dying in her arms.

“I held him. I begged him, ‘Coco, baby. Mom is here. Please don’t you dare die on me,’” Sanchez recounted. “I was trying to save the same child I had spent my life protecting.”

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Because her son was killed and detectives were investigating his murder, Sanchez said, she couldn’t give him a kiss on the forehead one final time. Corbalan teared up as Sanchez spoke.

“Karina, you took even my goodbye from me,” Sanchez said. “A mother should never have to visit her child in a cemetery…. You didn’t just take my son’s life. You broke a mother in a way that could never be repaired.”

As Sanchez neared the end of her address, she focused her sight on Corbalan, who was sitting with her attorneys in the jury box.

“You belong …with garbage because that’s what you are,” Sanchez said, in a louder voice. “You are a heartless person. You have no heart.”

Afterward, Sanchez sobbed and Corbalan turned to the Sanchez family. She said she loved him “no matter what the video showed or what they feel about me.”

“I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for taking his life,” Corbalan said. “I never meant to hurt him no matter what you think…. and I’m paying for it.”

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