Santería evidence kept out of triple murderer’s Miami death-penalty trial

Crime admin September 15, 2026 0 Comments

Santería evidence kept out of triple murderer’s Miami death-penalty trial

Jurors tasked with deciding whether a man who killed his wife and her two young daughters should be executed will be shielded from testimony about him participating in a Santería ceremony after the murders, a judge ruled Monday.

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez barred the introduction of evidence about Alberto Sierra, 42, practicing Santería, which is an Afro-Caribbean religion with roots in the Yoruba religion that incorporates some Catholic elements, during Sierra’s death penalty sentencing trial. The judge said she considered the “negative connotation” in the community.

Last month, Sierra pleaded guilty to suffocating Gladys Machado, 29, and her daughters Julia Padron, 7, and Daniela Padron, 4, with a plastic bag on Nov. 10, 2012. Three days later, a neighbor found their bodies inside a bedroom closet in their Flagami home on the 7300 block of Northwest Fourth Street.

The jury, which is tasked with deciding whether Sierra should be condemned to Florida’s Death Row or sentenced to life in prison, is still being selected as of Tuesday. Attorneys have screened about 800 potential jurors.

READ MORE: A jail call — and doubt about plea — emerges before killer’s death penalty trial

Prosecutors, court filings indicate, intended to introduce evidence related to Santería ceremonies that Sierra participated in as well as religious items found in the home where Sierra was staying. The evidence, prosecutors argued, went to Sierra’s state of mind — and whether he committed the killings in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.

Sierra’s legal team sought to exclude all evidence relating to Sierra practicing Santería, calling it a “much maligned religious faith” that is “viewed with great disdain by many in the Miami area,” court documents show.

Days after the murders — and after the bodies were found — Sierra participated in a “Santeria mass,” according to a court filing. Sierra’s mother also spoke to a member of the Santería clergy days before his arrest.

Sierra’s attorneys argued that prosecutors had “no evidence to suggest that any of the above possible evidence of the protected practice is either unusual, or related to any planning of the homicides, or related to any aggravating factor,” according to a filing.

“Mr. Sierra’s religious practice, as well as his family’s religious practices, are protected by the First Amendment, and are not relevant to any aggravating factor sought to be proven by the State,” they said in a court document.

Prosecutors can only introduce testimony about Santería in their rebuttal case if the defense brings up Sierra’s religion during the trial.

Triple murder shocks Miami

When questioned by police days after the murders, Sierra confessed to the grisly crimes:

He told detectives that he stabbed Machado inside her car after she, in his presence, took a phone call from another man. He then drove her and her daughters to their home. There, Sierra suffocated them with a plastic bag.

READ MORE: He killed his wife and her two young girls. Jury will decide if he gets to live

Sierra also raped Machado and Julia after they were dead, investigators say. DNA samples taken from Julia matched Sierra. Fingerprints at the scene were also linked back to Sierra, according to prosecutors.

Machado and Sierra, who had a history of domestic violence, split up shortly before the killings. Machado, a mother of three, moved in with her grandmother in Homestead while Sierra stayed with his mother at her townhome in Kendall.

On the evening of the murders, Machado went on a shopping trip with her two daughters, leaving her 6-year-old son with her grandmother, court records indicate.

Sierra accompanied Machado and her daughters to the Mall of the Americas in Machado’s 2004 gold Nissan Altima. A woman living at an efficiency near the home saw the Altima that night but said it was gone by 11:30 p.m.

The Altima was not spotted again until Nov. 19, when officers discovered it parked in a guest spot at Kendall’s Calusa Club apartments, 8810 SW 132nd Ave., across the street from the home of Sierra’s mother.

The Altima was backed into some bushes “so as to conceal the tag number,” according to police. Inside, investigators found blood on both the passenger and driver’s side seats.