Man sentenced to 37 years to life for stabbing toddler at downtown garment factory in 2016

A 34-year-old Los Angeles man was sentenced last month to 37 years to life in prison for killing a 3-year-old girl, authorities said.

On Sept. 3, 2019, Ricardo Agusto Utuy was found guilty of one count of murder and one count of attempted murder after an incident involving a co-worker’s daughter.  

Utuy, who worked at a sewing factory in downtown Los Angeles, noticed the routines of his co-workers Maria Rodriguez and Javier Vasquez and thought about killing them, authorities said.

Rodriguez and Vasquez would pick up their daughter Ruby from daycare and return to work, according to court documents. 

On Oct. 31, 2016, Ututy stabbed Ruby Vasquez, 3, after thinking about it for weeks, records show. 

That day, Vasquez and his daughter had stopped to get some cookies on the way back from daycare. When they arrived back at work, Ruby greeted her mother and asked her if she could bring her father a cookie. 

As she ran over to her father’s workstation, Utuy followed Ruby and stabbed her twice in the back and once in her front torso.

Utuy fled and went home, where he used meth. Ruby died at a hospital.

Hours later, Utuy turned himself in at the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. He said he was a chronic methamphetamine user and confessed to murdering Ruby with a pocket knife.

Voices had told him to kill Ruby Vasquez, he said.

In March of that year, Utuy had stabbed another person at a different garment factory. The woman had gotten up from her sewing station to use the bathroom when Utuy attacked her. He fled immediately and went back to his house to use meth.

According to court documents, Utuy also had a history of violence with his domestic partner and once threatened to stab her with a pair of scissors after an argument. He also threatened to beat up a DCFS worker who had told him to stop doing drugs and get help.

A week before killing Ruby, he admitted he wanted to kill a roommate, records show.

Contact the Homicide Report. Follow @latimeshomicide on Twitter.