A Prescott man was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and burying his wife alive.
Yavapai County Attorney Dennis McGrane announced that on May 9, Superior Court Judge David Mackey sentenced 62-year-old David Michael Pagniano to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife, Sandra Pagniano.
The Sheriff’s Office began investigating after Pagniano’s wife, Sandra, disappeared under suspicious circumstances during a contentious divorce. They found Sandra’s body bound and gagged in packing tape in a hand-dug grave in a remote area north of Prescott. The medical examiner determined Sandra had been buried alive.
Cell phone analysis showed Pagniano was in the vicinity of the gravesite in the days before the victim’s death as well as the night she went missing. Detectives recovered two notes that were filed in the divorce proceeding after Sandra’s disappearance, purportedly written by Sandra, that said she was leaving and giving Pagniano her vehicles, house, and custody of their children. A forensic examination of the notes revealed they had actually been written by Pagniano.
On the eve of trial, Pagniano decided to plead guilty and let the judge decide his sentence without any plea agreement from the County Attorney’s Office. In addition to the life sentence, Pagniano was also sentenced to serve an additional 16.5 years in prison for the crimes of kidnapping, forgery, and fraud schemes.