A visiting senior judge on Thursday dismissed capital murder charges against a 36-year-old Mexican man in what is likely Hidalgo County’s oldest unajudicated homicide case.
The dismissal came on the eve of trial for Martin Casimiro Margarito, who is accused of shooting and killing Victor Manuel Garcia and Elia Margarita Mendoza Flores on Oct. 29, 2014 during a kidnapping.
Prosecutors filed motions to dismiss two counts of capital murder of multiple persons and a count of capital murder by terror threat due to a witness’ unavailability for trial because of a pregnancy.
Margarito’s attorneys had also asked Senior Judge J. Manuel Banales to dismiss the charges because of speedy trial violations, which Banales denied.
Prosecutors do have the option of re-filing the charges.
Margarito has been ready for trial since 2019, but since then, prosecutors continued to file motions for continuance, to which his attorneys objected.
The pandemic only pushed his trial date back further.
Margarito, however, is not a free man.
He is currently serving 40 years in federal prison for kidnapping.
That conviction followed a Jan. 22, 2015 incident where police found a man running down a street in McAllen with rope still tied around his arms and legs, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
“That victim led law enforcement to the McAllen residence where he had been held,” the release stated. “There, law enforcement found another victim with his arms and legs bound.”
During his sentencing, Margarito admitted to holding at least one victim at gunpoint for ransom over a lost load of marijuana, according to the release.
While Margarito pleaded not guilty to the capital murder charges, he has since continued to maintain his innocence in the federal kidnapping case.
That assertion is in a motion he filed for compassionate release.
The man is in end-stage kidney failure.
A federal judge denied that motion.
Margarito will be transferred back to federal custody.
