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Thread: Palacios, Alvarado and Salinas Sentenced in 2015 TX Murders of Jose Torres and Lazaro Esparza

  1. #1
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Palacios, Alvarado and Salinas Sentenced in 2015 TX Murders of Jose Torres and Lazaro Esparza


    Carlos Palacios


    ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF GRUESOME EXECUTIONS AND BURNING CORPSES IN TEXAS


    EDINBURG, Texas – One illegal immigrant has been formally charged with capital murder and another is expected to be charged soon in connection with the execution of two men and the burning of the victims’ corpses in Texas. The two jailed illegal immigrants are said to be members of a fearsome gang called the Tri-City Bombers which has been tied to multiple massacres and high profile murders in the past.

    This week, investigators with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office arrested 22-year-old Edwin Adrian Salinas for his suspected role in the case. Authorities had initially arrested him on unrelated drug charges, but once in custody, homicide detectives were able to link him to the double murder.

    Sheriff’s office spokesman JP Rodriguez told Breitbart Texas that once in custody Salinas admitted to investigators his role in the murder. Salinas also had scar tissue on his body from healed injuries that are consistent with him helping set a car on fire.

    On Monday afternoon, Salinas went before a local justice of the peace who formally charged him with two counts of capital murder and set his bond at $2 million.

    Also on Monday authorities arrested a second suspect who is expected to be formally charged later this week.

    As reported by Breitbart Texas, the case surrounding the murder began in May when firefighters with the Monte Alto Fire Department responded to a car on fire in rural Hidalgo County.

    Once the fire was put out, authorities responded to the scene since in the trunk of the car firefighters found the bodies of 23-year-old Jose Luis Salinas Torres and 26-year-old Lazaro Alejandro Martinez Esparza.

    Both men had been shot in the head at another location and then driven to the rural area where their bodies were torched along with the vehicle.

    According to sheriff’s investigators the motive for the murder appears to be a drug dispute.

    Information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office revealed that in addition to the two suspects, the two murder victims were also illegal immigrants.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...corpses-texas/

  2. #2
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    The Tri-City Bombers again are looking at losing a couple of members you would think when Bobby Garza was executed in 2013 these gang bangers would have thought twice. These illegals are poster children for Trumps campaign.

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    June 19, 2018

    Closing arguments expected in 2015 double murder trial

    BY MOLLY SMITH
    The Monitor

    EDINBURG — Attorneys finished presenting their cases Tuesday in Hector Javier Alvarado’s capital murder trial.

    Alvarado, 26, is charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of capital murder of multiple persons for his alleged role in the May 2015 deaths of Jose Luis Salinas Torres and Lazaro Alejandro Martinez Esparza.

    Their bodies were discovered in the trunk of a car that had been set on fire off Farm-to-Market Road 1015. Investigators believe the men were fatally shot at a Mission home during a drug deal prior to be driven to the Delta Lake area.

    The state rested Tuesday after calling more than a dozen witnesses to the stand.

    Alvarado subsequently told Auxiliary Court Judge Jaime Garza that, per the advice of his defense team, consisting of O. Rene Flores and Rogelio Garza, he wished not to take the stand nor present evidence to jurors in the form of witness testimony.

    Garza is presiding over the case after the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office requested it transferred due to scheduling issues with the 275th state District Court.

    When asked if he rested as well, Flores said, “We do not rest, we do not close, we go no further,” a statement necessary to preserve the case if the verdict is appealed.

    Garza and Flores have proceeded “under protest” since the case was temporarily recessed in May after it came to light the assistant district attorneys trying the case had failed to provide the defense with resumes, testimony summaries and reports from the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsies and forensic scientists who analyzed crime scene evidence.

    Flores had asked for a mistrial given that jurors were released for a five-week period, a request the judge denied.

    Garza also denied Flores’ motion Tuesday for a directed verdict, which sought a not guilty decision from the bench. Flores argued no reasonable jury would find the state had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, as there was no witness testimony or physical evidence directly linking Alvarado to the crime, apart from an alleged confession of the accused.

    Alvarado confessed to Hidalgo County sheriff’s investigators he had been present when the two co-defendants, Edwin Adrian Salinas and Carlos Vicente Palacios, allegedly shot the victims and burned their car. Flores called the confession into question given that the investigator who interviewed Alvarado was not the same one who read him his Miranda rights.

    The state and defense are expected to make closing arguments Wednesday before the jury begins its deliberations. If found guilty of any of the three counts, Alvarado faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

    Trial dates have not yet been set for Salinas or Palacios, both scheduled to be tried in the 275th District Court.

    https://www.themonitor.com/news/loca...e350369fb.html
    Last edited by Mike; 07-01-2018 at 02:30 PM.

  4. #4
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    June 22, 2018

    Man convicted in 2015 burned bodies case

    By MOLLY SMITH
    The Monitor

    EDINBURG — After four hours of deliberation Friday, a jury found Hector Alvarado guilty of capital murder in what the state called a “horrific, brutal and excessively violent destruction of two human beings.”

    The 26-year-old showed little emotion, his gaze often downcast, throughout the six-day trial, which stretched over a seven-week period due to delays from evidence technicalities and major flooding in the county.

    The jury found Alvarado guilty of three counts of capital murder for his role in the May 2015 deaths of Jose Luis Salinas Torres and Lazaro Alejandro Martinez Esparza, who were found in the trunk of a burning car along a canal near Delta Lake. An autopsy revealed both were fatally shot in the back.

    He was the first of three co-defendants in the case to stand trial as dates have yet to be set for Edwin Salinas, 25, and Carlos Palacios, 32.

    Attorneys for the state and defense agreed only on the brutal nature of the crime during closing arguments Friday, and each side urged jurors to give the confession Alvarado made to a Hidalgo County sheriff’s investigator varying degrees of credibility.

    Alvarado told the investigator Salinas and Palacios shot the victims during a drug deal he had arranged between them and Salinas, a longtime friend, and Esparza, a drug trafficker. He confessed to witnessing Palacios bash Esparza’s face with the butt of a gun before the co-defendants turned their guns on him, threatening to hurt his family if he said anything about the murders. He then went with them to Delta Lake area where Palacios and Salinas set the car on fire.

    Assistant District Attorney Cregg Thompson argued that “parts of (Alvarado’s) statement are not consistent with other witnesses and evidence” and that “it is full of many lies.” This includes Alvarado’s then-girlfriend who testified that he confessed to bashing Esparza’s head upon her seeing human teeth on a picnic table at the home where the drug deal took place. Esparza was missing teeth, according to the forensic examiner who conducted the autopsy, and the state alleges this was on account of his face being hit by a weight.

    Other witnesses contradicted Alvarado’s account of his whereabouts in the hours and days following the crime.

    “The statement is merely evidence of his consciousness of his guilt,” said Thompson, adding Alvarado lied so as not to “put himself as a party to the crime.”

    Defense attorney O. Rene Flores, on the other hand, argued the state presented “no reasonable evidence” that Alvarado had planned or caused the victims’ deaths, noting it only showed he had arranged a drug deal, a crime with which he wasn’t charged.

    He argued in favor of the credibility of his client’s confession to only arranging a drug deal, not knowing what would transpire, emphasizing the sheriff’s investigator testified that Alvarado’s statement was in fact consistent with their investigation.

    “I am disappointed in the verdicts, but I respect them,” Flores said. “I believe there are several issues to appeal and I look forward to that.”

    As Alvarado was led out of the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies, his other defense attorney Rogelio Garza could be heard telling him, “This is the first time; it’s not over yet.”

    He will be sentenced Monday to the automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole by Auxiliary Court Judge Jaime Garza.

    https://www.themonitor.com/news/loca...4cb3eb377.html

  5. #5
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edinburg man sentenced for 2015 double homicide

    By Mark Reagan
    The Monitor

    EDINBURG — A 26-year-old man received a 45-year prison sentence Tuesday morning for his role in a drug deal that ended with the death of two men found dead in a burning car along a canal near Delta Lake in May 2015.

    Edwin Adrian Salinas, of Edinburg, said nothing as state District Judge Marla Cuellar accepted his guilty plea to two counts of murder and handed down the near five-decade sentence.

    The state agreed to dismiss one charge of capital murder in exchange for the guilty pleas. Salinas had initially been charged with three counts of capital murder.

    Salinas admitted to participating in the May 1, 2015, murder of Jose Luis Salinas Torres, 23, and Lazaro Alejandro Martinez Esparza, 26, who had both been shot in the back.

    Testimony during the six-day trial of Salinas’ co-defendant, 27-year-old Pharr resident Hector Javier Rodriguez Alvarado, revealed evidence of what the state called the “horrific, brutal and excessively violent destruction of two human beings.”

    That trial stretched over a seven-week period in May and June 2018 because the state failed to turn over certain evidence related to witnesses to the defense and because of major flooding at the time.

    According to Alvarado’s confession, Salinas and Carlos Vicente Palacios shot the victims during a drug deal arranged between them and Salinas, a longtime friend, and with Esparza, who was a drug trafficker, testimony during the man’s trial showed.

    The man confessed to authorities that he witnessed Palacios bash Esparza’s face with the butt of a gun before Palacios and Salinas turned their guns on him, threatening his family if he said anything about the murders, according to newspaper archives.

    Alvarado also admitted to be present when he says Palacios and Salinas set the car on fire.

    Unlike Salinas, Alvarado is serving life without parole and is currently located at 2665 Prison Road 1 at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Eastham Unit in Lovelady, a town of about 600 people approximately 100 miles north of Houston.

    A jury found Alvarado guilty of three counts of capital murder after approximately four hours of deliberation in late June 2018.

    As for Palacios, he has entered not guilty pleas to three counts of capital murder and has a jury trial scheduled for Nov. 4, court records indicate.

    https://www.themonitor.com/2019/08/2...uble-homicide/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #6
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Final suspect in 2015 double homicide sentenced to 23 years

    By Mark Reagan
    Brownsville Herald

    A 33-year-old Edinburg resident admitted to his role in what the state has called the "horrific, brutal and excessively violent destruction of two human beings."

    Carlos Vicente Palacios entered guilty pleas Tuesday to two counts of murder for the death of two men whose bodies were found in a burning car along a canal near Delta Lake in May 2015.

    In exchange for the pleas, the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office agreed to dismiss a charge of capital murder of multiple persons.

    After admitting guilt, state District Judge Marla Cuellar sentenced Palacios to 23 years in prison.

    The trial for Palacios' co-defendant, 27-year-old Pharr resident Hector Javier Rodriguez Alvarado, revealed that Palacios was one of two trigger men who shot and killed Jose Luis Salinas Torres, 23, and Lazaro Alejandro Martinez Esparza, 26, on May 1, 2015, during a drug trial.

    The other shooter, Edinburg resident Edwin Adrian Salinas, 26, was longtime friends with Esparza, who was a drug trafficker. Salinas also reached a plea deal with the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office and was sentenced to 45 years in prison on two counts of murder. Like Palacios, in exchange for the murder pleas, authorities agreed to dismiss a charge of capital murder of multiple persons.

    After Alvarado's arrest, the man told investigators he witnessed Palacios bash Esparza's face with the butt of a gun before Salinas and Palacios turned their guns on him, threatening his family if he said anything about the murders, according to newspaper archives.

    Both victims were shot in the back and Alvarado, who is serving life in prison, told authorities he witnessed Palacios and Salinas, both of whom avoided a life sentence, set the car on fire.

    https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/ne...7e387329b.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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