Trevor Rowe walks the halls of justice in Lubbock, Texas on Friday, April 28, 2023; the girl he killed, 10-month-old Marion Montoya, appears inset. (Screengrab via KCBD)
A Texas man who stuffed his then-girlfriend’s 10-month-old girl in a backpack and subsequently killed her was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday morning.
In January 2020, Trevor Marquis Rowe, 29, was arrested by Lubbock County authorities and charged with capital murder of a victim under 10 years of age for the tragic death of Marion Jester-Montoya.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the defendant took the child to his job site. There, he stuffed the girl in a backpack and left her on the floorboard of his vehicle for hours while he was working. Investigators wrote in a criminal complaint Marion got out of the backpack at one point, and he put her back inside.
Rowe checked on the child again during lunch. He determined that she was lightly crying at the time – but still breathing. According to the arrest warrant, Rowe went to a fast-food restaurant and two stores during his lunch break. After returning to the job site, he put the backpack in the trunk of his car.
At around 5 that night, the defendant determined the girl had stopped breathing. He called 911 and performed CPR.
But by then, it was far too late.
Her family remembered Marion Montoya as a sweet girl and an active child who was always on the move.
“She was actually learning to walk,” Emilio Montoya, the child’s father, said in a grief-struck interview with local NBC affiliate KCBD.
The girl’s father and mother had joint custody.
Katrina Montoya, the child’s aunt, said that if her brother had been able to retain sole custody of his daughter, she would still be alive.
“She wouldn’t be gone,” Katrina Montoya said.
The little girl’s grandmother told the TV station she was planning the baby girl’s first birthday party when the unthinkable occurred.
Family members said various warning signs went unheeded in the days before the girl died. The grandmother, Sheilah Montoya, told KCBD that when Rowe came to pick up the girl, “she immediately started screaming and grabbing” for her grandmother.
Child Protective Services even had an open case when Marion Montoya died, the TV station confirmed with the agency.
“We called. We sent pictures,” Emilio Montoya told local CBS affiliate KLBK at the time of the girl’s death. “We did the right thing that I could do legally, but what happens when the one system that can help you out chooses to just ignore you and write you off.”
Rowe was also charged with operating a motor vehicle without a license plate when he was arrested in 2020.
On Friday, Rowe pleaded guilty to capital murder with a victim under the age of 10. His sentencing followed.
“It is my job to forgive, and God’s to judge,” Emilio Montoya said after the sentencing in an interview with KCBD. “He was crying as I was talking to him, and we never broke eye contact.”
Trevor Rowe appears in a mugshot from January 2020. (Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office)
In 2018, the defendant was arrested for allegedly leaving his two children unattended.
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