Camden girl's killer gets life after 2d trial

Miguel Figueroa would have been better off if he hadn't won his appeal.

Two years ago, he was granted a new trial, along with a temporary reprieve from his life sentence for raping and killing a 13-year-old North Camden girl.

A second jury convicted Figueroa again earlier this year, and a Superior Court judge sentenced him yesterday to another life term.

But this time, the judge ordered Figueroa, now 37, to serve 55 years before becoming eligible for parole - a decade longer than his original sentence.

"Justice was served today - for the second time," said Lourdes Vasquez, the mother of the victim, Shaline Seguinot.

At least Figueroa couldn't blame his attorney for the added years. He represented himself this time.

He used the transcript of the first trial as a guide and appeared at times to be reading questions verbatim.

"You can't imagine my surprise," Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Greg Smith said. "It just goes to show you what a farce the whole situation has been."

Shaline Seguinot's body was found behind the Pyne Poynt Family School on Aug. 4, 1995. She had been raped, stabbed 10 times, and her throat was slashed.

The case became one of the most notorious homicides in Camden, particularly as the years rolled past without an arrest.

Figueroa, an early suspect, left Camden for Puerto Rico and, later, Florida. He was arrested in Tampa in 2000, and was convicted for the first time in 2002. DNA evidence from Seguinot's body matched Figueroa with a 1-in-42-trillion certainty, prosecutors said.

The case also marked the first time that Sister Helen Cole, a well-known North Camden nun, worked with crime victims' families. She has been doing so ever since, campaigning against violence and holding an annual vigil for Camden slaying victims.

Sister Helen sat behind Vasquez yesterday, patting her on the back and urging her, "Be strong, be strong," before Vasquez spoke to the court.

Shaline's mother told the judge that she never had expected to be back in court again after Figueroa's first conviction.

"I don't want to waste another minute of my life dealing with the man who killed my daughter," she said.

Figueroa had won a new trial, in part, because he was denied a request to defend himself during parts of his first trial. He turned down the chance to speak yesterday.

Ralph Kramer, who served as a stand-by counsel during the trial, said Figueroa did not want to say anything that could affect an appeal of his latest conviction.

Vasquez said she runs into her daughter's old friends. They're grown now, with jobs, families and children, and she realizes that Shaline will never have those things. Shaline will always be 13 years old.

"What I now realize is that there will never be closure," Vasquez said.