text: John Sandoval, whose first-degree murder conviction in the death of his estranged wife was overturned last year, led investigators to her remains in exchange for a plea deal. 
   
   The remains of Kristina “Tina” Tournai Sandoval have been exhumed from where he buried her beneath a grave in Sunset Memorial Garden cemetery where a World War II veteran was later interred. She was found inside a wrapping 21 inches below the bottom of the grave. 
   
   Sandoval on Friday pleaded guilty in Greeley District Court to second-degree murder. He will serve 25 years in prison and five years on parole. His sentence was dated back to August 2010 when he was convicted of first-degree murder. 
   
   Sandoval, 52, was to face a second trial this week in the Oct. 19, 1995, murder of Tina Sandoval. 
   
   Tina Sandoval’s mother Mary Tournai had reported her missing that day after she didn’t return from a planned meeting with Sandoval. 
   
   “She would have continued to make a difference in the world if she had not been killed by her husband,” Tournai said in a statement during the plea and sentencing hearing Friday. 
   
   The case went cold despite extensive circumstantial evidence pointing to Sandoval, a convicted peeping Tom. 
   
   Tina Sandoval was neither seen nor heard from again, according to a news release by Terasina White, spokeswoman for District Attorney Michael Rourke. 
   
   “If I can’t have you no one else can,” said Rourke, referring to Sandoval’s reasoning for killing his wife. 
   
   In June 2009, Rourke’s predecessor, Ken Buck, filed first-degree murder charges against Sandoval. A jury convicted him in August 2010. 
   
   In March 2016, the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. 
   
   Sandoval, dressed in a black suit, apologized Friday and expressed his “condolences” to the family. 
   
   But Rourke said Sandoval remained silent for 22 years and only disclosed the whereabouts of his wife’s remains so he could avoid spending the rest of his life in prison. Prosecutors referred to Sandoval as a perverted stalker and murderer. 
   
   “We finally know where Tina is and we can finally lay her to rest the way she deserves,” said her sister, Mary Nerud, 39. “John — you are a murderer.” 
   
   According to a family statement, her parents and siblings wrestled with the idea of a plea agreement, which ultimately would mean Sandoval could be released from prison. 
   
   “Would our decision to accept a plea deal endanger another woman? Could we live with a longer sentence knowing we would likely never recover Tina? 
   
   “We urge all women who are victims of stalking or domestic violence to separate themselves from the immediate danger and to reach out for help,” the statement says. 
   
   Three weeks before the second trial was to begin, Sandoval’s attorneys approached Rouke’s office about the possibility of a plea agreement. Their offer: He would lead investigators to his wife’s remains in exchange for a lighter sentence. 
   
   Rourke’s office contacted family members about the proposed agreement, which was later reached on March 23. 
   
   That same day, Sandoval led authorities to Sunset Memorial Garden cemetery in Greeley and the grave of WWII veteran Arthur Hert. His grave had been one of three that had been dug and were still open on the day Tina Sandoval disappeared, Rourke said. 
   
   “At the moment I looked down and saw we were dealing with the remains of a World War II veteran, I about passed out,” he said. 
   
   Hert’s family in Casper, Wy., was contacted and within 90 minutes, Hert’s son went to the police department and signed a release to allow his father’s grave to be exhumed. Another burial ceremony for Hert was held the following day by Veterans of Foreign Wars. 
   
   Rourke said police had received tips that Sandoval had worked at the same cemetery in 1995 and again in 2005, and tipsters had flagged Hert’s grave. But authorities did not attempt any exhumations then. 
   
   “For 7,826 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes, the location of Tina’s remains has been a mystery,” Rourke said during the plea agreement hearing. “One that has haunted her family and the investigators who worked this case from the minute it was reported, and the community as a whole. While the original conviction served to hold this defendant accountable for the atrocious act he committed, the lingering question as to her whereabouts cast a shadow over this prosecution. Over the course of the last week, we have finally been able to give her family what they so desperately wanted. Tina has been returned to her family and may finally be laid to rest.” 
   
   Her family plans a private burial service for their daughter. ||||| Bob Kuznik tries to collect himself as he addresses the public in a press conference after John Sandoval accepted the plea bargain Friday, March 31, 2017, at the Weld County Courthouse in Greeley, Colo.... (Associated Press) 
   
   Bob Kuznik tries to collect himself as he addresses the public in a press conference after John Sandoval accepted the plea bargain Friday, March 31, 2017, at the Weld County Courthouse in Greeley, Colo. Sandoval pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He led Greeley police to the remains of his wife... (Associated Press) 
   
   DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man who pleaded guilty Friday to killing his estranged wife more than two decades ago recently led authorities to her body, which was buried under the grave of a World War II veteran. 
   
   John Sandoval, 52, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1995 death of Kristina Tournai-Sandoval. 
   
   As part of a plea deal, he told investigators March 22 the remains were buried at a Greeley cemetery. 
   
   Sandoval found an open gravesite early in the morning on Oct. 20, 1995, that was scheduled for a burial that afternoon. Prosecutors say he dug about 2 feet (0.61 meters) below the grave and buried Tournai-Sandoval's body, which was wrapped in several layers of industrial-grade plastic. 
   
   Cemetery workers then unknowingly buried the veteran over her remains. 
   
   That day, detectives found a wet and muddy shovel in Sandoval's car and muddy clothes inside his home. After he was arrested, investigators noticed scratch marks on his face, neck and chest. 
   
   Charges were not filed at the time because authorities could not find the body, any witnesses or a crime scene. 
   
   "For 7,826 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes, the location of Tina's remains has been a mystery," Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke said in a news release Friday. "Over the course of the last week, we have finally been able to give her family what they so desperately wanted." 
   
   Sandoval was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. But an appeals court overturned his conviction last year, ruling a judge wrongfully allowed evidence that Sandoval stalked other women, as well as expert testimony correlating stalkers with murderers. 
   
   Prosecutors had been preparing for a new trial when Sandoval acknowledged knowing the location of his wife's body. 
   
   Court records show Sandoval had met with his wife to settle a debt before finalizing their divorce. Before the meeting, she warned family members that if anything happened to her, her husband was responsible. She also arranged to talk with her sister by phone after the meeting. ||||| Almost 2 feet below the concrete plate of Arthur Hert's grave at Sunset Memorial Gardens, the key to the one of Greeley's longest-running mysteries was about to emerge. 
   
   Wrapped tightly in a comforter, covered by a tarp and sealed with duct tape, the body inside was exhumed last week to solve the mystery of where Tina Tournai Sandoval was buried after her husband killed her on Oct. 19, 1995. 
   
   John Sandoval last week led police to this World War II veteran's grave after offering to reveal the remains of his former wife in exchange for a shorter prison sentence. Since his conviction on Aug. 5, 2010, Sandoval had been serving a life sentence. His conviction was overturned on appeal last year, and he was awaiting a second trial. 
   
   On March 7, while awaiting hearings for that second trial on the charge of first-degree murder, Sandoval reached out to prosecutors with the only thing he had to bargain with, said Weld District Attorney Michael Rourke. 
   
   That resulted in an agreement this week in which he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for 25 years in prison. The seven-plus years already served will count toward that. His earliest parole date is estimated to be 2028; upon his release, he will be required to serve five years of parole. Rourke said he and the family both wanted to make sure Sandoval was under lock and key and supervision at least until he reach the age of 70. 
   
   "This is not a man to be thanked," Rourke said in court Friday. "He should receive no additional accolades for his cooperation. He sat in silence for 22 years, hoping and believing he'd gotten away with murder, and only on the eve of a second trial did he come forward and bargain with the only thing he can … and that's Tina's whereabouts." 
   
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   Sandoval had spent his three-year marriage to Tournai Sandoval, who grew up in Windsor and graduated from Windsor High School, stalking women and collecting underwear from women's homes as a trophy he kept in a garbage bag in the garage. Tournai Sandoval left when police came knocking one too many times — especially after an allegation that her husband was stalking women in her car overnight in the summer of 1995. 
   
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   She moved out in August. By October, she had planned one final meeting with him, to settle an IRS debt during their marriage. She left her overnight nursing job at North Colorado Medical Center at 7 a.m. Oct. 19, 1995, bound for his home in north Greeley. She was never seen again. 
   
   Until Sandoval's March 7 revelation, police had no body, no physical evidence, nor solid DNA evidence, much less a confession or witnesses to Tournai Sandoval's death. Jurors at his first trial said prosecutors eliminated any doubt that Sandoval was the killer during the month-long trial. He was the last to have seen her; he had been known to be stalking her; she disappeared off the face of the earth a little too sudden for a promising young nurse who had just landed her dream job; he had fresh scratch marks all over his torso and neck; and he lied about his alibi, which he concocted in jail with his mother. 
   
   His conviction, however, was overturned by the Colorado Court of Appeals last year. For the past few months, prosecutors had been readying for a second trial. 
   
   Prosecutors considered offering an agreement of a reduced sentence in exchange for the location of the body prior to the first trial, but the family wouldn't accept it. 
   
   But time has taken its toll on the family, weary of continued publicity, and continually reliving the pain associated with the loss of their sister, daughter and aunt. 
   
   "We wrestled with the idea that by giving our consent to a plea deal, Tina's murderer will ultimately be released from prison," said Bob Kuznik, father-in-law to Susan Kuznik, Tina's sister, in a news conference Friday after the hearing. "Given credit for time already served and the prospect of an early release for good behavior while in prison, that day of his release would come much sooner than we might like. Knowing that a second trial could again result in a life sentence without the possibility of parole, at what personal sacrifice do we decline the offer and allow a trial to proceed? Would our decision to accept a plea endanger another woman? Could we live with a longer sentence knowing that we would likely never recover Tina? These were not easy issues for us. In the end, we decided as a family and are at peace with it." 
   
   Police had examined tips about the graveyard burial several years before. On Nov. 1, 1995, then-police detective Brad Goldschmidt followed up on a tip about the possibility of Sandoval hiding his wife's body in an open grave. Sandoval had worked there in 1993 and knew the cemetery's procedures for burial. 
   
   There were three open graves on Oct. 19, 1995. Two had a concrete floor; a third did not. Goldschmidt interviewed an employee of the cemetery who discounted the idea that a body would be hidden in the graves because the concrete vaults had already been placed. The employee said he even looked around the cemetery at possible places to hide her. Nothing was found. It was one of literally hundreds of tips that came in for years that led nowhere. 
   
   Monday morning quarterbacking aside, Rourke and Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner said they were satisfied police 20 years ago did the right thing. 
   
   "There were tips both in 1995 and 2005 about the fact that Sandoval had worked there, there were open graves and perhaps are where they could look," Rourke said in a news conference Friday. "The investigation focused on obtaining information. But for reasons everyone could understand, there were no steps at that point to further investigate or seek to investigate any other grave." 
   
   Rourke said he almost "passed out" when he learned they would have to exhume a World War II veteran's grave. He called the family of the veteran, who drove down the next day from Casper, Wyo. On March 22, the family, along with Greeley police and Weld District Attorney's office members, and the honor guard, posted colors over Hert's casket. 
   
   "We felt that was a fitting way to honor him," Rourke said. Hours later, along with the Evans Veterans of Foreign War post, they gave Hert a proper military burial and placed his casket back in the grave, Rourke said. 
   
   Rourke said on March 24, the Weld County coroner conducted a forensic autopsy on the remains, and the cause of death has not yet been determined. Sandoval did not offer any specifics about the Tounai Sandoval's death. Rourke said he would pursue that question next. 
   
   Just four days prior to her body being exhumed was Tournai Sandoval's birthday. She would have been 45. 
   
   "She would have continued to make a difference in the world," said her mother, MaryEllen Tournai in court Friday, "if she had not been killed by her husband." 
   
   Her family described her in court as brilliant, loving and a gentle soul. Her absence continues to haunt them. 
   
   "Even after 21 years of the horrific and violent murder of Tina, the entire Tournai family regularly experiences shock, numbness and disbelief," said Brian Kuznik, the husband of Tina's sister, Susan Kuznik. "The magnitude of this event and the impact it had on the entire family has proven to be so emotionally difficult, many are unable to stand and share how they feel." 
   
   Tina's elder sister, Kelly Fryan, told Sandoval she prayed for his conversion of heart for many years so he would become a safer member of society and never again victimize another woman. 
   
   "That being said, God called to make sure I'm not only praying but always active in making sure you do not harm another person," she said in the packed courtroom. "I take that calling seriously. I have accepted this task. I will keep a watchful eye over your life so the safety of any community you reside in will be kept." 
   
   Not once did Sandoval look back to anyone in the courtroom Friday. But for the first time, he spoke, offering condolences to the Tournai family. 
   
   "I certainly would like to express my condolences and my apologies to Mike and Mary Ellen (Tournai, Tina's parents), the extended Tournai family for the time it took to convince police where we're at today. The devil hardens hearts of man; if man allows, God is able to soften hearts of men … That's what I pray for." 
   
   Mike Prill, the Greeley Police detective who re-examined the evidence in 2009, and found new angles and witnesses, had agonized with the family throughout the trial and subsequent setbacks. He glared at Sandoval as he walked in, and was led out of the courtroom. 
   
   "I'm happy the family got their baby back," Prill said later. "John now is irrelevant for almost everyone."
target: – The body of a woman who went missing more than two decades ago has been found—buried under the grave of a World War II veteran. John Sandoval, 52, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Friday and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1995 death of his estranged wife, Kristina Tournai-Sandoval. As part of a plea deal, the Colorado man told investigators March 22 her remains were buried at a Greeley cemetery. Sandoval found an open gravesite early in the morning on Oct. 20, 1995, that was scheduled for a burial that afternoon. Prosecutors say he dug about 2 feet below the grave and buried Tournai-Sandoval's body, which was wrapped in several layers of industrial-grade plastic. Cemetery workers then unknowingly buried the veteran over her remains, reports the AP. The Greeley Tribune reports Tournai-Sandoval had planned to meet her husband of three years for one last time before finalizing their divorce, in order to discuss an IRS debt. That meeting was to take place Oct. 19, 1995; it was the last day she was seen alive. Detectives found a muddy shovel in Sandoval's car, muddy clothes inside his home, and noticed scratch marks on his face, neck, and chest. Charges were not filed at the time because authorities could not find the body, any witnesses, or a crime scene. Sandoval was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. But an appeals court overturned his conviction last year. Prosecutors had been preparing for a new trial when Sandoval offered to give up his wife's location in exchange for taking a life sentence off the table, reports the Denver Post. He could be up for parole as soon as 2028.