Illegal immigrant receives 40-year prison sentence for Bozeman homicide

HELENA – 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, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced today.

Francisco Padilla Canales pleaded guilty in January to mitigated deliberate homicide. Canales inflicted multiple fatal stab wounds to a man after finding his estranged wife in a relationship with the victim. He had previously faced charges of deliberate homicide, aggravated kidnapping, tampering with witnesses and information, and aggravated burglary.

After tracking his estranged wife with a GPS device planted on her car and discovering that she and the victim and were in a relationship, Canales attacked the pair, inflicting multiple stab wounds to the victim’s chest. The victim succumbed to his injuries shortly after law enforcement arrived on the scene despite Canales attempting CPR after the attack. 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. 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.

Canales will be eligible for parole after 10 years, per statute. 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.

Assistant Attorney General Jordan P. Salo prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the Bozeman Police Department.

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