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A man sentenced to 30 years in prison for murdering his wife on a cruise ship
A man who brutally murdered his wife in front of their daughters while on a cruise ship has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
A man from Utah, USA, who murdered his wife in front of their daughters on a cruise ship off the coast of southeast Alaska in 2017 has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
According to acting US Attorney for the District of Alaska Bryan Wilson, Kenneth Manzanares, 43, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder in connection with Kristy Manzanares' slaying aboard the Emerald Princess cruise ship in US territorial waters.
According to prosecutors, the couple got into an argument in front of their daughters on July 25, 2017 in the cabin of their cruise ship. Kristy Manzanares had informed her husband that she desired a divorce and that he should exit the ship when it arrived in Juneau.
Prosecutors allege that Mr Manzanares directed his daughters to exit the room. However, after hearing their mother scream, the girls attempted to re-enter.
They entered through a connected balcony, where they witnessed their father "straddling Kristy on the bed and striking her in the head with closed fists."
Then, according to reports, he attempted to throw her body overboard before his in-laws broke into the room and one of them intervened.
Kristy Manzanares passed away as a result of her injuries.
“[She] sustained a severe head wound, and blood was found on multiple surfaces throughout the room,” according to an FBI arrest report.
According to an FBI report, the victim's brother-in-law, identified in court documents as D.H, discovered Kenneth Manzanares with bloodied hands and Kristy covered in blood on the floor.
Manzanares allegedly told D.H., "She would not stop laughing at me." Authorities determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and face.
“In 2017, while on an Alaskan cruise with their three daughters and extended family members, Kenneth Manzanares brutally murdered his wife Kristy Manzanares,” Mr Wilson said in a statement.
“This was not an act of random violence, but rather a chilling disregard for human life.”
The victim, according to Robert Britt, special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage Field Office, was "a beloved mother, daughter, sister, and friend."
“While justice has been served, the impact and trauma this man inflicted on Kristy's family will never be forgotten,” he said. “Our thoughts are with Kristy's family and the community in which she grew up.”