Baton Rouge man who killed and dismembered wife, fled to Venezuela gets life sentence

Three days after getting rid of the body, he fled the country with his daughter and boarded a flight to his homeland Venezuela. Lozada remained free in the South American country, which has no extradition agreement with the United States, for several years. Mexican authorities working with local investigators captured Lozada in October 2018 after he moved to Monterrey, the capital city of Nuevo Leon. He was returned to American soil to face charges in his wife’s death.

Defense attorney Bob Noel argued at trial that Lozada committed a crime of passion and should’ve been tried for manslaughter instead of murder. He filed notice of an appeal, which he told the judge the Louisiana Appellate Project will handle.

“They’re going to be scouring the record to see what mistakes were made on the record, and we do believe there were a few,” Noel said.

Ghislaine Finck, in her letter, recalled how “completely distraught, worried, sad and afraid” her sister was when she visited Belgium in June 2011, about a week before her disappearance. She said the years of uncertainty about Finck Lozada’s fate wreaked havoc on what had been their “joyful and happy” family.

“For my mother, losing a child was the worst thing,” said Ghislaine, who watched Monday’s hearing remotely from Belgium. “Without any news from her (Finck Lozada), she stayed hours, days, years waiting and looking into the void. Her life was meaningless. The loss of her daughter was fatal and she died from grief.”

Oscar and Sylviane’s daughter, now 16, lives in Belgium with her mother’s relatives. Ghislaine Finck said the girl has been in therapy the past four years because of the ordeal and asked Lozada to finally tell her what happened.

“She’s been traumatized by all the years that Oscar has lied to her and manipulated her,” Ghislaine said. “We think it’s time to help her. If Oscar loves his daughter, he must tell her the whole truth. This may free her from the wound that will be difficult to heal. Oscar has destroyed the life of an entire family, especially that of his daughter.”