A New York father was jailed for 20 years to life Thursday for lacing his children's pizza with rat poison, killing his five-year-old son and making his seven-year-old daughter sick.
Prosecutors said Leonardo Espinal, 49, carried out the callous crime in November 2012 to get back at his ex-wife after discovering that she was seeing another man.
Espinal wrote a suicide note and fed poisoned pizza to the children at an apartment in the Bronx, eating some as well.
His daughter Mia vomited, but Espinal locked himself in the bathroom with five-year-old Steward and refused to come out.
Espinal's stepmother called 911 and police broke down the door but it was too late. Steward was found dead in the bath tub from a combination of poison and being submerged in water, officials said.
Rosaura Abreu, who had kicked her former husband out of the family apartment, told the court how she and her daughter had been left distraught and devastated by the murder.
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