Prosecutors charged a Denver man with murder on Tuesday in connection to the 2016 death of his girlfriend on an Amtrak train in Wisconsin.
According to Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, Angelo Mantych has been charged with first-degree murder of 28-year-old Marina Placensia. She was the mother of four young children, three of whom she had with Mantych.
Prosecutors say on August 31, 2016, Placensia, her four children, and Mantych boarded an Amtrak train in Wisconsin and headed for Denver. They lived in Wisconsin at the time. When the train arrived at Denver's Union Station on September 1, Placensia was dead.
After several years of investigation, Mantych has now been charged and an arrest warrant has been issued.
McCann said in a statement, “I want to thank the prosecutors and investigators in my office, as well as the detectives with the Denver Police Department, whose work on this case has gotten us to this point. I also want to thank the Racine (Wisconsin) Police Department and the Amtrak Police Department for their invaluable assistance with the investigation.”
According to our sister station Denver7, Mantych was on the platform area of the station when Placensia was pronounced dead and according to an affidavit, "appeared to be upset, crying and vomited several times."
During a conversation with police, Mantych said they had left Wisconsin to move to Denver. He said about 20 minutes before the train was due to arrive in Denver, he tried to shake Placensia awake, but she did not respond, according to the affidavit.
Police at the scene noted several bruises on her body that "appeared to be consistent with an assault or struggle," the affidavit reads. However, an investigator said he believed none of them were an "obvious case of death." When police asked Mantych about the bruising, he said his girlfriend had been "banged up from moving." An autopsy later found blunt impacts to her head, trunk, and extremities.
Placensia's brother reached out to police that same day to say they should look into Mantych and called him abusive.
The following day, Sept. 2, 2016, Mantych spoke with police again, this time over the phone. He said they had lived in Wisconsin for three years and his girlfriend had never been hospitalized there for anything. He told police the family was excited to move to Denver and were planning their future.
About a week after Placensia's death, police spoke with the family's acquaintances in Wisconsin, who said Mantych beat Placensia the day before the move and that the couple fought often. Several other people told police Mantych was abusive, both physically and mentally. One person said he beat Placensia daily, according to the affidavit, and another said she had to go to a hospital multiple times for her injuries from the assaults. Some witnesses also said they believed Mantych was abusing the children based on what they heard through open windows.
A friend of Placensia told police that Placensia had talked with her family over the phone about moving back to Colorado to escape Mantych, but he had overheard the call and told Placensia "he would kill her if she left with the children," according to the affidavit. Others told police that she would wear sweaters and sunglasses all summer to cover bruises, according to the affidavit.
Family planned to have Placensia live with them in Denver once she had arrived.
Placensia's autopsy showed 35 internal and external injuries. However, the autopsy report noted that they did not explain her death. The cause and manner of death was listed as undetermined, according to the affidavit.
As part of the investigation, police spoke with the Racine Police Department in Wisconsin. According to one of their reports from March 13, 2015, Mantych had punched Placensia's ear several times and she lost hearing in that ear. He was arrested and charged with assault after that incident.
The investigation continued for several years. Other witnesses spoke with police in 2023 and said they had seen abusive behavior regularly from Mantych.
On May 18, 2023, a doctor confirmed he believed Placensia's cause of death was the first result of asphyxia from suffocation and said her injuries are consistent with suffocation cases in both living and deceased patients, according to the affidavit. He said he believed her injuries were the result of an assault, including blunt force trauma and suffocation.
That report reads: "Suffocation was the cause of Ms. Placensia's homicidal death and occurred from the application of pressure to her face, obstruction of the nose and mouth, and created a hypoxic condition which led to her death... The manner of death is homicide."
An at-large warrant was signed for Mantych's arrest on Oct. 30. He is due in court on Nov. 1 at 8 a.m.
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