Illegal Immigrant Gets 40-Year Sentence for Montana Homicide

On March 20, 2024, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced that a man in the United States illegally was sentenced to 40 years in Montana State Prison for stabbing a man to death in July 2022.

“Francisco Padilla Canales pleaded guilty in January to mitigated deliberate homicide,” Knudsen said. “Canales planted a GPS device in his estranged wife’s vehicle and discovered that she and the victim were in a relationship. Canales attacked the pair, inflicting multiple stab wounds to the victim’s chest.”

Knudsen said Canales attempted CPR after the attack, but the victim succumbed to his injuries shortly after law enforcement arrived on the scene.

“Canales also coerced his estranged wife into supporting his original statement to Bozeman Police Officers that he had not been responsible for the stabbing, before eventually making a full confession,” Knudsen said. “Law enforcement officers also found three handguns, two rifles, and a shot gun in Canales’s vehicle, which he was not legally allowed to possess.”

According to Knudsen, Canales previously faced charges of deliberate homicide, aggravated kidnapping, tampering with witnesses and information, and aggravated burglary.

“Canales will be eligible for parole after 10 years, per statute,” Knudsen said. “He is currently detained on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold. If he is paroled, he will be handed over to ICE custody, likely deported, and barred from receiving legal immigration status into the United States in the future.”

The Bozeman Police Department investigated this case, and it was prosecuted by Assistant Attorney General Jordan P. Salo.