2009 St. Paul murder case is 1 of 7 under independent review

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A 15-year-old Ramsey County murder case is one of the seven that an independent panel of medical experts will review for possible errors, according to the wife of the man convicted.

Murder case under scrutiny 

Michael Sontoya, 47, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for sexually assaulting and murdering his girlfriend, Gabriela Romo, 31, in St. Paul in September 2008. 

Dr. Michael McGee, the controversial former chief medical examiner, performed the autopsy on Romo, finding that she bled to death from a 14-inch laceration that stretched from her pelvis to her abdomen. 

Prosecutors in Ramsey County are reviewing seven cases linked to former medical examiner Dr. Michael McGee, as his past cases are coming under scrutiny for errors found by other experts.

Isabella Sontoya, a certified death investigator from Canada who met Sontoya during his unsuccessful appeals process and married him in 2022, doubts the autopsy report. 

She pointed out that court documents show paramedics found little blood on Romo’s clothing and thought she suffered a cardiac arrest. In his testimony, Dr. McGee refuted Sontoya’s claim that Romo dressed herself after the two had sex, arguing that there would have been more blood on her clothing.

"I can’t unsee the truth," she said. "You would think there would be a lot more evidence stacked against him than one medical examiner’s testimony."

Sontoya is represented by attorney James Mayer, the legal director at the Great North Innocence Project, a Minneapolis-based advocacy organization that specializes in wrongful convictions.

In May, it was revealed during a court hearing that a 113-page file from the medical examiner’s office was never made available to either prosecutors or Sontoya. The court ordered that the file be turned over to Sontoya’s attorney. The contents of the file are not publicly known.

Convictions in question

FOX 9 first uncovered questions about Dr. McGee’s work in 2010, more than a decade before prosecutors started reviewing his work for possible errors.

READ MORE: Secret recordings reveal flawed death investigation

At least two murder convictions that relied on his testimony have been overturned, including one involving a man who was convicted of beating his infant daughter to death. A half-dozen experts later determined that she accidentally suffocated in her sleep. 

In addition, the death sentence of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., who was convicted in the 2003 kidnapping and murder of Dru Sjodin, 22, was commuted to a life sentence after concerns over Dr. McGee’s work on the case surfaced.

What comes next 

In addition to the seven homicide cases under review, the attorney general’s office is reviewing 11 of its cases that involved Dr. McGee.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office would not confirm whether Sontoya’s case is one of the seven under review.