The man who brutally beat and strangled his female roommate to death, has been sentenced to life in prison. Rodrigo Inostroza-Soto will be eligible for parole after 10 years, which is the maximum under the law for Second Degree Murder. He was found guilty of Second Degree Murder after a jury trial earlier this year.
Tiffany Galvan was found dead in her home on March 25th of last year, after Reno Police received a report that there had been a fight and she was unconscious and not breathing. When officers arrived, they found Ms. Galvan lying in the kitchen in a pool of blood with a severely beaten face, no pulse, and in rigor mortis. Officers interviewed Inostroza-Soto at the police station, where he said the two had gotten into a fight the night before and that he pushed her, she fell and didn’t get back up. However, the evidence showed that after Ms. Galvan fell to the floor, the defendant put his knee on her neck and strangled her while hitting her repeatedly in the head.
Inostroza-Soto told RPD Robbery-Homicide Detectives that he was unable to call for help because he couldn’t find his phone, despite Ms. Galvan’s phone being on the couch, and the defendant using his iPad to use “find my phone,” which was out on the lawn. Multiple times throughout the evening, Blink doorbell footage showed Ms. Galvan’s neighbor finding Inostroza-Soto’s phone and attempting to return it, but he did not answer the door. After going to sleep, he woke up the next morning and got into his car, where he drove around town to find members of his family, and returned to the restaurant the pair had been to the night before, before eventually connecting with his sister. After Inostroza-Sota and his sister returned to the house, they then called police.
During the trial and again at sentencing, Deputy District Attorney Jeff Hoppe highlighted how not only did Inostroza-Soto savagely beat Ms. Galvin, but how he at no point sought to get help for her, despite having the ability to do so, and how he waited until the next day to call police. The Honorable Lynne Jones imposed the life sentence, saying how the defendant’s actions were “monstrous.”
