The sole Hidalgo County resident to be convicted of murder by a jury during the pandemic has notified an appellate court of his intention to challenge his conviction and sentence.
Fidencio Castillo Cosme, a 34-year-old Mercedes resident, filed the notice with the 13th Court of Appeals on Wednesday, records show.
A jury convicted Fidencio after about an hour of deliberations on July 21 of killing 16-year-old Armando Torres IV on Sept. 28, 2020, in a Mercedes neighborhood at around 1 p.m.
The following day, July 22, the jury sentenced Fidencio to 85 years in prison.
Fidencio’s brother, 37-year-old Juan Jose Cosme, is also charged with murder for Torres’ death and has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors proved to the jury that the brothers attacked Torres, who was wearing headphones, from behind because they believed he had been casing their mother’s house for a robbery.
Fidencio slashed Torres about a dozen times before stabbing him in the chest after Juan placed Torres in a headlock, according to prosecutors.
The 16-year-old suffered a 4-inch wound to his chest that punctured his sternum and cut an area of Torres’ lung that attached to his heart, testimony showed.
Fidencio’s defense attorneys, O. Rene Flores and Mauricio Martinez, sought to challenge the Mercedes Police Department’s investigation into the crime during the trial, painting a picture of inexperienced investigators who violated Fidencio’s constitutional rights.
The attorneys also sought to discredit Torres by trying to prove to the jury that the 16-year-old was a juvenile delinquent who may have been responsible for a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood.
However, that evidence came from Fidencio’s mother, Fidencio’s statement to police and from social media photos showing Torres hold what appears to be a gun, though a friend of Torres’ testified it was a BB gun.
The trial lasted five days.
Juan remains jailed on a $1 million bond and is scheduled for trial in November.
As for Fidencio, he is being held in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Garza West facility in Beeville, which is a transfer unit.
He will not be eligible for parole until late 2050, when he’ll be 64-years-old.
The entirety of his sentence takes him into the next century, 2105.
Fidencio would have to live to be 119-years-old to serve his full sentence.
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