HOUSTON — A 22-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison for executing a deadly ambush in which he killed two brothers he knew from high school.
Marlon Brandon Valdez learned his sentence on Monday.
Editor's note: The videos attached to this article are from previous reports on the shooting.
What happened
Two days prior to the deadly shooting in northeast Houston, Valdez, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, lost a fight at a cul-de-sac on Eastbrook Drive, well-known by local youths as "the settling spot."
On Feb. 21, 2019, Valdez set up a rematch and climbed onto the roof of a vacant house in northeast Houston with a rifle and waited for Julio and Maximo Aguilar to show up.
When the Aguilars arrived, along with two other people, Valdez opened fire. Fifty-eight shell casings were found at the scene. Julio and Maximo were killed and the other two people who showed up with them were wounded.
“They were all high school students,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Raygor, who prosecuted the case with Megan Long, said. “One of the victims had a baby on the way and the other had just had a baby, so their families were just devastated.”
At the time of the shooting, before Valdez had been identified and arrested, then-Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo called the gunman a coward who hunted his victims "like deer."
Conviction
After a weeklong trial, Valdez was convicted of capital murder by a Harris County jury. Punishment for capital murder is an automatic sentence of life without parole.
"The families of these victims will never see their loved ones again because a teenager with an assault rifle decided to execute two teenagers he got in a fight with," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. "Far too often, young people think they can do whatever they want, and hurt whoever they want, and just escape the consequences. But the consequences are real."