After the 18 year old killer asked for the maximum sentence in a Milwaukee courtroom yesterday, the judge gave it to him. His victim's still mourning mother "received her [50th] birthday wish" when he was sentenced to 4 decades in prison by Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Jeffery Conen.
The events which led up to that courtroom scene started last year - July 19th to be exact. Eric Tavulares, now 19, choked (manually strangled) Lauren Aljubouri to death in their East Side of Milwaukee near UWM apartment after watching "Natural Born Killers." It was Tavulares' favorite movie, about a couple who went from childhoods of hurt to lovers and serial killers.
"I need to be punished. I believe this is best for me . . . I recommend the maximum sentence."
When he was 5, his father suffered a debilitating gunshot wound to the head during a failed suicide attempt. At 12, Tavulares began seeing a psychologist, Jeff Hollowell, who testified that his patient was depressed, angry and agitated - but also intelligent and artistic.
Tavulares' mental health problems were exacerbated by drug and alcohol abuse.
Lauren was the bright light in Tavulares' life. They met in third grade. In the fifth he told a friend he liked her. They went to a dance in the seventh grade. In high school they began dating for real but broke up, only to rekindle their romance after she finished high school in January 2008.
While Lauren excelled, Tavulares dropped out of school, did drugs and drank frequently.
She helped him get his high school diploma and encouraged him to enroll in a Milwaukee Area Technical College program for prospective firefighters. They got an apartment on N. Frederick Ave., not far from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
According to Lauren's mother Debbie, who still talks to and goes to sleep with a picture of her daughter, she planned to study graphic design at UWM. The victim's father Faiek said that his daughter tried to call her killer 36 times, reaching him only twice. When the father asked his daughter about her "boyfriend," "tears filled her eyes and she said nothing."
"I am very angry that her life was cut short, her dreams were cut short," he said. "I am angry at the way she died, that I was not there to help her."
"I have a hard time believing that the defendant woke up in the middle of the night and had some demon inside him that made him choke the life out of Lauren Aljubouri,"but that if it happened as the perpetrator said, it would make him even more dangerous.
Tavares pled guilty to 2nd degree reckless homicide in November, and never gave a motive for the killing. Judge Conen said the sentencing was the most difficult decision he's had to make in the dozen years he's been on the bench, but the brutality of the killing, and the perpetrator's desire for the maximum sentenced tipped the scales.
"I can't help but be afraid of what will happen if he is released sometime in the near future."
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