A 28-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to two homicides nearly eight years ago.
Xavier Garcia, who has been held at the Lubbock County Detention Center since Feb. 7, 2018, appeared in the 137th District Court with his attorney, Danalynn Recer and Chris Wanner, and entered guilty pleas to a count of capital murder in the Feb. 5, 2018 stabbing death of Katrina Castillo and to murder in the Jan. 13, 2018 shooting death of Kmydron Jordan.
In exchange for his guilty plea, he was handed a sentence of life without parole for the capital murder charge and a life sentence for the murder charge, which will run consecutively.
The plea bargain saved Garcia from a potential death sentence had his case gone to a trial, which was tentatively set to begin in January.
“Today was a very long time coming … an eight-year-old capital murder case,” said Lubbock County District Attorney Sunshine Stanek. “Lots of things have gone into (the case), the time that has run in this case … But I will tell you that this office’s goal from the defendant’s arrest was that he never ever walk out of custody, ever.”
Stanek, who declined to comment on the details of the case as Garcia’s co-defendant is still awaits trial, said the plea, in which Garcia waived his right to appeal, guarantees the community will be safe from him for the rest of his life.
“I believe that this is justice in this case. It is justice for the safety of this community,” she said. “That life without parole sentence on the capital murder is exactly what it says. It is life without parole. And in the event something ever changed in the statute, he is also serving a consecutive life sentence on the straight murder case. That will not even begin until that life without parole case ends.”
Garcia’s attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.
Investigating a death in south Lubbock
Garcia’s case stems from a Lubbock police investigation that began Jan. 13, 2018 when a Lubbock County Sheriff’s Deputy responding to a suspicious vehicle in area near the intersection of 84th Street and Avenue N, found the body of an unidentified man in the driver’s seat of a dark green Oldsmobile.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s mother called Lubbock police to report her son’s disappearance.
She told officers that she had been calling her son’s phone several times that morning and was finally answered by a clerk who worked at a convenience store near the intersection of I-27 and 82nd Street.
Officers would later learn that Jordan’s cousin sent him to the store to meet with Garcia who was buying marijuana from him.
At the store, investigators spoke to the man who turned in Jordan’s phone to the store clerk.
The witness told investigators that he was sleeping in his Lincoln Navigator in the store’s parking lot when a car pulled up next to his.
He said he could hear an argument from the vehicle followed by four loud bangs that could have been gunshots, the documents state.
Investigators later identified Jordan as the dead person in the Oldsmobile.
Video footage from the store’s security camera shortly before the shooting showed a blue GMC Yukon arriving at the store and slowed down as it passed the Navigator, stop, then drive out of the parking lot.
Three minutes later, Jordan could be seen arriving at the parking lot and parking in the spot next to the Navigator.
Investigators believe Jordan was murdered a minute after he arrived, the documents state.
A second killing at an east Lubbock home
On Feb. 5, 2018, a homeowner called 911 reporting what she believed was a body, later identified as Castillo, in her backyard in the 4200 block of East Second Street, according to the sheriff’s office.
An autopsy indicated she died from multiple “sharp force injuries.”
The next day, deputies arrested Garcia near the intersection of 50th and Bangor Avenue as he was driving Castillo’s vehicle.
Text messages between Garcia and Castillo on the day of her death indicated Garcia was offering to pay her $80 and marijuana for a ride to a drug connection.
During his arrest, deputies collected a .40 caliber handgun, the same caliber as the bullets in Jordan’s killing. Garcia denied to police detectives he killed Jordan and said he lent his handgun to Devante Greathouse.
During his interview with investigators, Garcia admitted to killing Castillo and “provided details that were consistent with the evidence found at the scene,” according to an arrest warrant.
Meanwhile, an inmate at the jail contacted investigators telling them that he spoke with Garcia about his involvement in Jordan’s death.
Garcia reportedly told him that he and 27-year-old Greathouse were involved that homicide case.
Garcia told the inmate that he and Greathouse arrived at the store in Greathouse’s mother-in-law’s Yukon.
A forensic report from a Texas Department of Public Safety analyst stated DNA found on Garcia’s gun likely came from Garcia and Greathouse. A separate report stated that blood found in Greathouse’s Yukon was likely Jordan’s. A ballistics report indicated the bullet casings found in Jordan’s vehicle were fired from Garcia’s gun, the warrant states.
Greathouse faces a charge of murder in Jordan’s slaying and is being held at the Lubbock County Detention Center. His bond is set at $200,000.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Defendant in two 2018 Lubbock murders sentenced to life in prison
Reporting by Gabriel Monte, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
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