{"id":342151,"date":"2026-09-09T20:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/342151\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T20:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:34:10","slug":"2-women-get-life-in-prison-for-sam-nordquist-murder-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/342151\/","title":{"rendered":"2 women get life in prison for Sam Nordquist murder in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York judge sentenced two women Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for their roles in the torture and murder of Sam Nordquist, according to WHEC<\/a>, KSTP\u2019s sister station.<\/p>\n

Precious Arzuaga and Jennifer Quijano previously pleaded guilty to charges connected to the death of 24-year-old Sam Nordquist, a transgender man from Minnesota. Authorities said Nordquist traveled to Canandaigua, New York, to meet Arzuaga, whom he had met online.<\/p>\n

Related stories: <\/p>\n

According to WHEC, Arzuaga admitted to physically and psychologically torturing Nordquist for about a month before his death in February 2025.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors described Arzuaga as the \u201cringleader\u201d of a group that carried out the abuse. Seven people were charged in the case, and four have pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n

A New York Judge sentenced Arzuaga to life in prison without parole on a first-degree murder conviction. WHEC reported Arzuaga was sentenced to:<\/p>\n

25 years to life for first-degree kidnappingEight and 1\/3 years for second-degree conspiracy25 years determinate plus 20 years of post-release supervision for first-degree aggravated sexual abuseTwo and 1\/3 to seven years for first-degree coercionOne and 1\/3 to four years for concealment of a human corpse364 days for each of her two counts of endangering the welfare of a child<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Quijano received a life sentence without parole after pleading guilty to first-degree murder. WHEC reported Quijano was sentenced to: <\/p>\n

25 years to life for first-degree kidnappingIndeterminate eight and 1\/3 years to 25 years for second-degree conspiracyMax of 25 years plus 20 years of post-release supervision for first-degree aggravated sexual abuseMax of one and 1\/3 to four years for concealment of a human corpse364 days for each of her two counts of endangering the welfare of a child<\/p>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Nordquist\u2019s mother, Linda Nordquist, addressed the court and spoke about her son\u2019s death. Ahead of her sentencing, Arzuaga also apologized to Nordquist\u2019s family and said she accepted responsibility for her actions, WHEC reported.<\/p>\n

As previously reported<\/a>, Nordquist was tortured at Patty\u2019s Lodge. After losing contact with him, his family reported him missing on Feb. 9, 2025. Authorities found his body four days later, in Benton, New York.<\/p>\n

Three defendants remain awaiting trial, while two others previously pleaded guilty in the case. WHEC reported each remaining defendant will be tried separately.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Murder<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0New York<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Sentencing<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Transgender Rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York judge sentenced two women Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[259,9,11,10,3209,11389],"class_list":["post-342151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-murder","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sentencing","tag-transgender-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}