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Alfonso Sanchez, 41, was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder as well as burglary, aggravated assault, and solicitation to commit murder on Monday, May 1, said Bucks District Attorney Matthew Weintraub's Office.
According to evidence and testimony presented in court, Sanchez was joined by Steven Miranda and Alex Martinez when he stopped by a Warminster apartment to buy marijuana from Mendez Thomas on Oct. 16, 2007.
Thomas' girlfriend, her children, and her sister Lisa Diaz were also at the apartment that night, DA Weintraub's Office said.
After buying the pot, authorities say Sanchez and Thomas began to argue "when one of them stepped on the other’s shoe." When Thomas walked away and headed down a hallway in the apartment, Sanchez followed and shot him point-blank in the head, prosecutors said.
He then turned to Lisa Diaz, who was in the living room, and shot her in the shoulder, according to the release. As she lay on the ground, authorities said Sanchez shot her once more in the head.
“He turned this tiny apartment into his own shooting gallery in his murderous rampage," the DA told the court, calling the home a "killing zone."
With Sanchez still armed and two of her children in the apartment, Thomas' unnamed girlfriend "had to make a choice no parent should ever have to make (...) "choosing which of her children to protect."
“Her whole world is turned upside down, and she has to make a decision with deadly consequences,” Weintraub said.
She grabbed her son and shielded him with her body as Sanchez fired one shot, striking her in the knee, prosecutors said. He fled the scene, as Miranda and Martinez had already done, per the release.
The surviving victim ran to a neighbor's house and made a 911 call that jurors would hear repeatedly during the trial. "His name’s Alfonso," she reportedly told dispatchers.
Miranda and Martinez turned themselves in the following day, the DA said. Miranda was convicted of two counts of homicide for which he received two life sentences, and Martinez pleaded guilty to burglary and conspiracy, earning a four-to-10-year sentence.
Sanchez, meanwhile, was caught at a home in Horsham nine days after the killings, officials wrote. Police found him "hiding in the bathtub with hair dye, cash, and newspaper clippings about the shooting nearby" — “trophies of the carnage he inflicted," opined Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Lannetti.
While awaiting trial, the DA said Sanchez tried to arrange for the surviving witness of the rampage to be murdered. Investigators said they listened to "thousands of hours of prison calls" where Sanchez spoke in code to arrange for the victim to be "removed from the playing field."
“People who are innocent of murder don’t try to have living witnesses killed," Weintraub said during closing arguments.
Sentencing in the 41-year-old's case began on Tuesday, May 2.
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