A jury convicted a 50-year-old Mercedes man of capital murder on Wednesday for the 2016 kidnapping and death of a 44-year-old Progreso man over a $40,000 drug debt.
Ramiro Garcia Lopez’s conviction on the charge carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.
The trial began Nov. 1.
Garcia is the second suspect to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the April 6, 2016, kidnapping and killing of Gilberto Garces.
Adalberto Mosqueda Guardado, 42, received the same sentence June 23, 2017.
Two other suspects in the case — Sergio Medrano and Mauricio Vidal — remain fugitives.
Garces disappeared on the day of his death after he went to the Mid-Valley Tire Shop in Mercedes to get money.
“He told (his wife) he would call her back in fifteen minutes and the two would meet at a nearby HEB store, but Garces never called her back, and he did not answer her calls,” a ruling in Mosqueda’s case said. “Garces’s widow called police and filed a missing persons report the next day.”
During Mosqueda’s trial, Garces’ son testified that Garcia owned the tire shop and that Garces owed the man nearly $40,000.
Authorities discovered the man’s body April 7, 2016, by a levee south of Expressway 83.
“Garces’s body was found with an electrical wire wrapped around his wrists,” the ruling stated. “Investigators determined that the wire had a number which corresponded to a certain brand of drill set.”
Investigators determined the wire likely came from Garcia’s tire shop where authorities also found latex gloves, a pistol and several magazines.
“Police also found a drill set matching the electrical cord found wrapped around Garces’s wrists,” the ruling stated. “Although several other drill sets were found at the tire shop, this was the only one missing its charging cable.”
After Mosqueda’s arrest, he told investigators that Garces’ request for money made him angry.
That’s when investigators believe that Medrano, Vidal, Mosqueda and Garcia all beat Garces, knocking him unconscious. They were driving to Mexico when Garces woke up and began fighting with all of them.
“During that fight there was a shot that broke the rear passenger side window near the lev[ee],” the ruling stated Mosqueda said. “I don’t know if it hit Garces or not because I didn’t see blood and Garces and the man kept fighting.”
The men were near the river when Vidal and Medrano took Garces out of the vehicle and shot him.
A forensic pathologist determined Garces was shot several times in his head, chest and hand and suffered blunt force trauma.
Authorities nearly arrested Vidal, a La Feria resident, after a traffic stop in January 2018, but he escaped and remains on the run.
Mosqueda was arrested April 26, 2016, and remained jailed at the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center on a $1 million bond until his conviction. He is now being held at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Allred Unit.
Deputies arrested Garcia on April 18, 2016. He bailed out of the county jail on a $200,000 bond on June 17, 2016. However, he was arrested by Border Patrol at the Sarita checkpoint on Oct. 5, 2017, after agents discovered 15 people in the country illegally hidden in a load of cotton seed in a tractor-trailer he was driving.
The federal government dismissed that case in 2020 and he has remained in federal and then state custody since his arrest at the Sarita checkpoint.
Both Medrano and Vidal are still wanted on charges of murder for Garces’ death.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify information about the ruling.
