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New Jersey Man Sentenced to 60 Years for Killing His Wife, 4-Year-Old Son

What to Know

  • The man accused of killing his wife and their 4-year-old son was sentenced Tuesday to decades behind bars, prosecutors announced
  • Jose Ronald Santos-Alvarez was sentenced to 60 years in state prison for strangling Monika Potoczniak and suffocating their son, Christopher
  • Santos-Alvarez pleaded guilty to the two murders on Dec. 13, 2018

The man accused of killing his wife and their 4-year-old son was sentenced Tuesday to decades behind bars, prosecutors announced.

Jose Ronald Santos-Alvarez was sentenced to 60 years in state prison for strangling Monika Potoczniak and suffocating their son, Christopher, in 2015, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said in a tweet Tuesday. Santos-Alvarez pleaded guilty to the two murders on Dec. 13, 2018.

The mother and child were found unconscious in their Jersey City home Oct. 7, 2015 and transported to a local hospital, where they were pronounced dead. The mother had been strangled and the boy suffocated, the prosecutor's office said.

Following the double homicide, authorities issued an arrest warrant for for Santos-Alvarez. When police encountered him, he allegedly lunged at one of the officers with a knife after they encountered him on Clay Street in Hackensack Oct. 15, 2015. The officer's partner then shot him.

Both the wounded officer and Santos-Alvarez were subsequently taken to Hackensack University Medical Center to be treated.

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