Early on the morning of Jan. 10, following the first anniversary of their tempestuous marriage, Army Spc. Raul Hernandez Perez decided his wife, Selena Roth, had to go — as in he chose to kill her, in this case as she slept.

The 24-year-old admitted in a military court Monday that he retrieved a baseball bat from the garage of Roth’s Schofield Barracks home and bashed her on the head with it four times as she lay facedown on her bed.

Seeing her chest continue to rise and fall, he retrieved a kitchen knife and plunged it into her back four times.

Army Judge Col. Mark Bridges accepted a plea agreement in which Hernandez Perez pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and disobeying a no-contact order in exchange for a sentence of 50 to 65 years in prison.

The exact sentence is expected today following a lengthy series of family statements against and for the soldier.

It was a heinous end to a rocky relationship that the night before involved the couple holding hands at Pearlridge Center on their anniversary.

About a dozen family members of the 25-year-old Roth flew in to speak of her love for her now 2-year-old daughter, Nemea — a child with a previous husband — her big heart for stray animals, the devastation her death has caused, and to question why Hernandez Perez decided to murder his wife.

Roth’s sister Aubrey Rangel said in the Wheeler Army Airfield courtroom that a hearing to finalize a divorce brought by Hernandez Perez was scheduled for Jan. 20 — just 10 days after she was killed.

“Why? I pray she didn’t suffer,” said her sister Kristen Coniglio during one of 11 victim impact statements. “So much has been taken from our family.”

Julie Ingoglia said, while glaring at Hernandez Perez, that he had dumped her sister’s body in a large garbage can “like a piece of trash.”

“This was such a senseless murder,” she said, noting that divorce was imminent and he was moving to another state. She added, “Raul has robbed my family of so much.”

An Army prosecutor had previously said Hernandez Perez had rekindled a relationship with a high school sweetheart in his home state of Florida.

Despite that, on Jan. 9 — the day of their anniversary and referred to as “Raul Day” — Hernandez Perez and Roth spent the day together and went to the Pearlridge mall, where they were seen on camera footage holding hands, the prosecution said.

Army prosecutor Capt. Matthew Bishop said at a May 20 Article 32 hearing similar, to a preliminary hearing, that Hernandez Perez, a signals intelligence analyst assigned to the 500th Military Intelligence Brigade, obtained a temporary restraining order against Roth claiming “psychological abuse.”

But Bishop said the soldier, who lived in barracks housing at the time, would go to Roth’s house on base and have sex with her, leave and call police to say she was violating the restraining order.

On Dec. 15 he made himself the beneficiary of a $100,000 life insurance policy on Roth, the Army said. Early in the morning on Jan. 10, and while at Roth’s home, Hernandez Perez Googled how many swings it took to kill someone with a baseball bat, Bishop said at the Article 32 hearing.

The body of the Army veteran, also a onetime signals intelligence analyst, was found Jan. 13 stuffed in an outdoor trash bin that had been moved just inside the two-story house. Evidence photos showed one arm and hand of Roth’s poking up through a towel and sheet rolled up and thrown on top of her.

At the Article 32 hearing, Bishop acknowledged that Hernandez Perez and Roth had a “very rocky” relationship. “More importantly, he wanted to be with” his high school sweetheart in Fort Myers, Fla., “and Selena was in the way of that,” he said.

Roth was still in love with Hernandez Perez and was angry about his relationship with the Florida woman, “but he is no longer in love with her,” the prosecution said. The discord led to “multiple domestic incidents.”

The defense made no statement at the hearing, and no witnesses were called.

Rangel called military police to request a wellness check when regular communication with her sister stopped. What police were greeted by on Jan. 13 was “truly horrific,” Bishop said.

The master bedroom had blood splattered on all four walls and the ceiling. Blood had heavily stained the spot on the bed mattress where her head was.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office found that Roth died as a result of blunt force trauma to her head with stab wounds as a contributor, according to Bishop.

The military judge Monday asked Hernandez Perez to describe how he was guilty of murder, and the soldier matter-of-factly described how he spent the night of their anniversary at Roth’s home and then killed her.

He was up at 4 a.m. Jan. 10 and “started thinking of what she (Roth) had done previously to make me go through the divorce,” he said.

That included harassment of him and actions like sending cow manure to his family, he said. He got angrier and angrier, and the “final tipping point” was remembering Roth had stated something about killing his mother.

“I thought I had to get rid of her … kill her,” he said of Roth.

Hernandez Perez was quickly picked up after his wife’s body was found Jan. 13. U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command Special Agent Aaron Carter said Hernandez Perez did not appear emotional or upset.

He recalled that the soldier’s reaction was, “‘Am I in trouble?’ He had no emotion.”

Rangel, testifying about the impact to the family, said, “None of us sleep. None of us can function.”

“Our family is not the same. It will never be the same,” she said. “He didn’t have the right to do that.”