Pharr man pleads guilty to 2019 shooting, gets 35 years in prison

Vicente Gonzalez Coronado

A Pharr man who shot and killed a McAllen man at a Motel 6 parking lot after an argument was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Monday.

Vicente Gonzalez Coronado, who was 23 at the time of the shooting, was charged with murder for the death of 28-year-old Noel Jesus Valenzuela.

On Dec. 9, 2019, McAllen police responded to the Motel 6 located at 700 W. Expressway 83 at about 11:04 a.m. Officers found Valenzuela lying in a pool of blood inside the lobby area. He was still conscious, but struggling to breathe, according to police reports.

Valenzuela was shot twice in the upper right area of his chest and asked for an ambulance, the reports said.

A woman who worked at the motel witnessed the shooting, as well the argument the two men had in the parking lot, and described Coronado to police.

He had fled on foot, she said.

Officers found Coronado talking to a woman at the northeast area of the property and he fled the scene. Police later detained him in the back parking lot of OYO Hotel and transported him to the McAllen Police Department, where the employee positively identified him as the shooter, the report said.

Another employee told police that Valenzuela asked to be changed rooms because the “subjects inside room #223 were harassing him,” according to the reports.

A McAllen police officer photographs evidence of a fatal shooting outside a Motel 6 Monday, Dec. 9, 2019, in McAllen. (Matt Wilson | [email protected])

The same employee also told police that a couple hours before the shooting, Coronado approached him and said he had been robbed the previous night, but that he knew who it was and that “they were going to take care of it,” the report said.

The employee added that when Valenzuela arrived that morning, he told him there were several men in the parking lot that wanted to beat him up, but said Valenzuela didn’t look worried and told him he would take care of it, the document states.

The police report says the male employee said “that no more than two minutes after Valenzuela left, he heard two gunshots in the parking lot area.”

Jail records show that Coronado was previously sentenced on one count of sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child, though one count of indecency was dismissed.

According to court documents, Coronado will receive 1,007 days in jail credit as part of a plea bargain.