December 23 – A father forgave the man who fired a gun that killed his daughter in Manchester last New Year’s Eve, before a judge sentenced the man to at least six years in prison.
Tyler Cook, 27, who pleaded guilty last month to reckless manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Sophia Bonfiglio, 26, looked intently and cried as Paul Bonfiglio spoke during Monday’s sentencing hearing in Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester. .
“I hope you learn from this and live your life, your full life,” Bonfiglio told Cook. ‘Always keep in mind that Sophia no longer has that chance. You do.’
The couple was together for about nine years. They were in the process of moving from their apartment at 274 Amherst St. in Manchester to Paul Bonfiglio’s home on Cape Cod.
A negotiated plea deal allowed both parties to argue for the minimum prison sentence.
Prosecutor Patrick Ives asked for ten to twenty years in prison, three of which were conditional. Lawyer Leif Becker demanded five years.
Messer essentially split the difference in Cook’s sentencing to 8 to 16 years, with nearly a year of pretrial probation and a year of suspension if he completes an anger management course as part of his prison rehabilitation. He will be eligible for parole in 2031.
“Any crime involving loss of life is very serious, and the judge’s sentence is indicative of that and I am confident that Mr. Cook will be successful upon his release,” Becker said after the hearing.
Paul Bonfiglio said his daughter “wasn’t a perfect person, but she was a perfect daughter.” He talked about how she had a dead-end job at a car dealership and planned to go to nursing school.
“Only you and God know what happened,” he said. “I’m without a daughter.”
Cook, who also planned to go into nursing, said he feels terrible and expressed his regret to the Bonfiglio family.
“I would like to take responsibility for this tragic accident that I caused,” Cook said. “Under no circumstances was it my intention to hurt the love of my life, but because of my irresponsibility, I stand before her and pray for forgiveness,” Cook said.
For the first time, Ives explained what happened on the afternoon of December 31, 2023, when Cook claimed he “went to put away his firearm so he could pack it up” and removed the magazine because the couple had to be away. apartment at the end of the day. He also went to remove the round in the chamber by sliding the slide back.
“He then claims, without touching the trigger, and even with his finger nowhere near it, that he felt the gun go off from the slide operation,” Ives said. “He was questioned by police several times about this and insisted that this is what happened.”
A bullet was found in the gun when Manchester police recovered the gun, meaning a loaded magazine was present at the time it fired, Ives said.
Jill Theriault, a firearms expert at the New Hampshire State Forensic Laboratory, discredited the claim after discovering that there was no debris or mechanical defect in the weapon “that would allow it to fire a bullet without the firing pin hitting the bullet hits,” according to court papers. The model of the firearm was not presented in court or in legal proceedings.
Ives also mentioned a history of domestic violence. A neighbor, Albert Valcourt, testified that he had heard arguing and “percussive sounds” such as a snare drum in recent months and alerted police.
“The defendant did not care enough about Sophia’s well-being to keep that gun away from her,” Ives said.
Waking up at 1:30 a.m. the day they had to leave the apartment contributed to a tense atmosphere, Ives said.
Becker argued that Cook was an inexperienced gun owner and that he went out of his way to provide lifesaving assistance.
Cook’s mother, Amy Cook, said the couple lived at her home for the first eight years of their relationship and that she would not have tolerated any abuse. As for evidence of broken doors and defects in the apartment, she said they were there before they moved in.
“He’s going to be a mess for the rest of his life,” she said. “I’m talking to him on the phone and he’s crying to me and saying he doesn’t know what to do without her.”
Paul Bonfiglio said he never knew how volatile the relationship was, but other family members, including Bonfiglio’s cousin, Sunni Wright, expressed harsher words toward Cook, including suggesting Cook had brainwashed her.
“He made my cousin a statistic,” Wright said. “He was a cancer in her life all those years and the day he shot her in the chest, he became a cancer in mine.”
jphelps@unionleader.com
