In the late summer of 2011, the life of 39-year-old Hispanic female Milka Rivera was tragically cut short in a devastating act of domestic violence in her Lawrence, Massachusetts home. On September 5, 2011, police were called to her apartment on Maginnis Avenue around 2 a.m. Inside, they discovered a horrific scene: Rivera, along with her 19-year-old daughter Sachary Montanez and her 16-year-old son, Max Montanez, had all been shot and killed.
All three victims were found in her son Max's bedroom.
Rivera, who was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, was described as a loving and devoted mother who worked hard to support her children. She was employed at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. Her daughter Sachary was about to begin college, and her son Max was a tenth-grader and a guard on the football team at Greater Lawrence Technical High School. Friends remembered Rivera as a "great mom" and her children as "wonderful kids," making the loss profoundly felt by the community.
The suspect in the triple homicide was quickly identified as Jose Luis Tejeda, 40, who was Milka Rivera's live-in boyfriend of five or six years. Shortly after the killings, Tejeda approached a neighbor and confessed that he had killed his family. The neighbor promptly called 911 and stayed to translate for Tejeda, who only spoke Spanish. Tejeda was arrested at a nearby housing complex without incident. When questioned by police, he repeated his confession and stated that he had also attempted to shoot himself but had run out of bullets. Investigators recovered a. 357 Magnum revolver in the grass behind the apartment building.
In August 2014, Jose Tejeda was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Milka Rivera and her two children. During the trial, the jury heard that Tejeda's motive for the killings was that he felt they were "talking down to him." He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison. Tejeda later appealed his convictions, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the verdict in January 2020, ensuring that he would remain incarcerated for the murders.
