XPost: triangle.politics, alt.politics.democrats, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.crime
A takeout order, a pack of American Spirits, a gun — and no beer.
The story of Juan Deras Escalante’s first-degree murder conviction starts
five years ago, witnesses say, when a new father declined to buy the then 19-year-old a drink outside a Charlotte Mexican restaurant.
Domingo Venencio-Tapia, 41, died on April 29, 2019 when a bullet struck
him in his face and four others were shot into the wall behind him. His newlywed wife, who had given birth 16 days earlier, wasn’t there. Instead,
a man he met that night — at the Lempira Restaurant on South Boulevard —
held him while he bled out and took his last breath.
After an eight-day trial, a jury Wednesday found Escalante, now 23, guilty
of all charges brought against him: first-degree murder and four counts of discharging a firearm into occupied property.
“It started over something stupid and snowballed,” Escalante’s lawyer,
William Heroy, said to the jury during closing arguments.
But, he argued, the teen never intended to shoot Venencio-Tapia.
The shooting
Escalante left the restaurant in a friend’s car after Venencio-Tapia
refused to buy them a drink, according to witness statements. He hung
outside the passenger window and fired five shots.
Those bullets were supposed to shoot up into the air, Heroy contended.
As Venencio-Tapia and a few other men shuffled back into the restaurant,
the car jolted or hit a curb, and Escalante’s arm fell — firing the
bullets lower than intended, Heroy said.
The friend driving, Gerardo Lagunes, previously pleaded guilty in
connection with the crimes, according to a news release from Mecklenburg County’s District Attorney’s Office.
State prosecutors squelched the defense through witness statements and
recorded jail calls.
“This is my neighborhood,” Escalante said as he readied to pull the
trigger, witnesses recalled. He told Venencio-Tapia and two other men he’d
shot and killed a man before.
Then came the bullets, none of which shot into the air.
Instead, all of them pelted into the building, and one hit its target — Venencio-Tapia, argued state attorneys William Bunting and Austin Butler.
The fact alone that Escalante fired shots at a building where he knew
people were dining was enough to justify the four counts of discharging a firearm into occupied property. Those shots – and the one that struck Venencio-Tapia — also showed intent, which is needed to justify a first-
degree murder charge, Bunting said.
Juan Escalante’s murder trial
Escalante and Lagunes fled the scene down South Boulevard. Venencio-Tapia
was dead when police arrived.
Witnesses — including Darcy Luna and Junior Lopez, both testifying in
court — remembered Escalante’s curly hair, white shirt and gold chain. It glistened as he hung outside the window, they said.
Surveillance video showed Escalante and two friends inside Lempira minutes before the shooting. They picked up a to-go order, and Escalante talked to
the bartender, video shows.
Then he moves on to Venencio-Tapia and Lopez’s brother. They all pat their pockets — as if looking for a lighter, Bunting said — before stepping
outside the front of the restaurant, video shows.
Minutes later, footage shows people rushing outside or to the cash
register, ready to check out and leave the restaurant. It was now a crime scene.
Outside, Venencio-Tapia lay in Lopez’s arms. A full, untouched pack of
American Spirit cigarettes had fallen next to them.
Snapchat, phone records lead to murderer
Police didn’t find Escalante until May 2019, when an eight-hour standoff
with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s SWAT team eventually drew
him out of his home. Inside, he had taken Xanax and was drinking alcohol, according to police records.
In police reports, detectives referenced a confidential source that led officers to Escalante. That source, investigators revealed in court Jan.
29, was a cell tower simulator provided by the Secret Service.
The technology imitates a cell tower and locates persons of interest by connecting to a phone through a building’s walls, The Charlotte Observer reported.
In court Wednesday, Bunting — the DA’s Office Homicide Unit Chief — showed Snapchat “memories” in his closing argument. Police obtained a saved video Escalante took a day before the fatal shooting at Lempira. It showed him
with a Glock, one that matched the suspected murder weapon.
In court, six of Escalante’s family members sat behind him through the
entire trial, shaking their legs as lawyers presented closing arguments
and the jury deliberated. They all declined to comment on the trial.
On the other side, Madeline Tapia-Jones, the victim’s wife, sat with two
family members who routinely placed a hand on her shoulder. She declined
to comment during the trial and could not be reached following the jury’s
final verdict.
“This boy, he made a choice,” she told WBTV in 2019. “He obviously shot my husband, and because of that he only spent two weeks with our daughter.”
Remarried and again pregnant, the widow traveled from Indiana to testify
and witness the trial.
Mecklenburg County Judge Justin Davis sentenced Escalante to life without
the possibility of parole for the murder charge and an additional 100-168 months for shooting into an occupied building. As of Thursday afternoon,
he was still being held at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center.
https://news.yahoo.com/teen-killed-dad-over-beer-172857338.html
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