Roidan Durruthy Mendoza had killed his estranged wife , said the victim’s daughter, Mariam Martinez.

Martinez was scared for herself and her sister.

“The only thing I could do, that I was thinking was: I had to protect what I had left,” the now-17-year-old said in court Wednesday. “So I grabbed the knife on the ground and I was planning to kill him because why would I let a man that killed my mother live?”

She said she stabbed Mendoza, who was not her father, wherever she could, and he tried to stab her and managed to cut her hand. She was smaller than he was and not very strong, but she found the strength to push him away, she told District Judge Michelle Leavitt.

Leavitt ordered Mendoza to serve a life without parole prison sentence.

Mendoza, 40, pleaded guilty in August to a count

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