Family Handout Dominick Andujar, 6, was trying to protect his 12-year-old sister as she was being raped inside their Camden, N.J. home in 2012 when his throat was fatally slit by her attacker.
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Facebook Dominick's older sister was able to escape the horrific attack but with grave stab wounds.
EnlargeDominick Andujar, 6, was trying to protect his 12-year-old sister as she was being raped inside their Camden, N.J. home in 2012 when his throat was fatally slit by her attacker.
A New Jersey man who fatally slashed a 6-year-old boy's throat while raping and knifing the child's 12-year-old sister on her birthday will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Amber Andujar, now 14 years old, bravely spoke before a Camden court Thursday, bearing thick scar marks stretched across her neck that will forever remind her of that horrific day two years ago.
"Today I stand here as a survivor," she said before the judge, her family, and her brother's twisted killer, the Courier Post Online reported.
"Even though he took a part of me away, in the end, you did not win," she said. "We won because I made it."
Osvaldo Rivera, 35, a man better known as a "monster" by the victims' family, showed no emotion as he was sentenced to 110 years in prison for murder, attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault, burglary and terroristic threats.
Chris LaChall/ASSOCIATED PRESS Osvaldo Rivera, is seen in court shortly after his arrest in the Sept. 2, 2012 attack. He was sentenced Thursday to 110 years in prison. He previously turned down a plea deal that would have given him 65 years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty.
It was around 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2012, just two hours into Amber's birthday, that her young brother Dominick Andujar heard her cries and heroically tried to come to her rescue.
Instead the brave little boy was overpowered by Rivera and slashed across his throat in a sawing motion which left him dead on the floor.
Amber was also knifed, twice by Rivera, before she was able to escape and run down her street bleeding profusely.
Chris LaChall/AP Camden, N.J. Police Chief Scott Thomson, seen left of Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk, called Dominick's attempt to safe his sister 'one of the most heroic acts of self-sacrifice that I have ever known.' When first responders got to her they reported her wounds as being so deep in her neck that her vocal cords were exposed.
Today the scars from that attack run deep across her neck, and even deeper in her heart and mind.
"I want this animal to suffer," the children's mother, Debbie Burgos, told the court on Thursday. "He deserves to fear for his life, like my children did in their own home."
Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson agreed with the ailing mom.
Dominick will always be remembered as Camden's littlest hero.
"There is no sentence or punishment harsh enough for this amoral individual," he said while refusing to utter the sick killer's name.
"The name that people should remember is that of Dominick Andujar, the 6-year-old murder victim who saved his 12-year-old sister's life through one of the most heroic acts of self-sacrifice that I have ever known," said Thomson, according to the Courier Post. "Dominick will always be remembered as Camden's littlest hero."
It's a title that the boy may have known ahead of the savage attack as evidenced in his kindergarten journal which was later returned to his mother by his teacher.
Inside it read: "I am a superhero, I save people."
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