BA teen gets life in gang killing
BY BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer
Saturday, May 12, 2012
5/12/12 at 5:24 AM
A teenager faces sentences of life plus 20 years in prison upon being convicted of murder and discharging a weapon into a dwelling in a case that a prosecutor said was about ''gang rivalries."
Tulsa County jurors on Friday found Gustavo Escareno-Guzman, now 18, guilty of first-degree murder in the October 2010 killing of Christian Reyes, 18.
Reyes was fatally shot in a garage in the 200 block of South 104th East Avenue, where people had gathered, police reported.
Testimony at this week's trial indicated that Escareno-Guzman drove up with some other people, got out of the car and fired shots into the garage with a handgun, with one shot striking Reyes.
Prosecutors Julie Doss and John Salmon maintained that Escareno-Guzman had a deliberate intent to kill Reyes, a gang rival.
Escareno-Guzman, of Broken Arrow, testified that he "was just trying to scare him."
"I did not intentionally kill anybody," he said.
The life term for murder requires that he serve 38 years and three months in custody before becoming eligible for parole.
District Judge James Caputo also gave jurors the option of returning a verdict on the lesser offense of second-degree murder, which carries a sentencing range of 10 years to life.
Jurors did not exercise that option.
Escareno-Guzman also picked up a 20-year prison sentence upon being found guilty of a count of discharging a weapon into a dwelling or public place.
He was arrested in October 2010 and remains in the Tulsa Jail.
At his formal sentencing in June, prosecutors will request that Escareno-Guzman's sentences run consecutively, Doss said.
Bill Braun 918-581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com
