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Agustin Molina Uribe was on his way home from work the night of May 5, 2022. He had gotten off work early and may have been excited to see his family. He may have tried bringing food home. It was a Thursday, close to the weekend, he may have been looking forward to rest.
The trouble with all of that is that his family and no one will ever know what he would’ve done when he came home because he never made it there.
He died at the age of 62, near retirement age, on a stretch of road after being struck by a red Mazda 3 driven by Angela Mia Villarreal, a 28-year-old paralegal working at the Law Office of Reynaldo Ortiz at the time, from Edinburg.
Villarreal, now 30, was speeding at 111 mph down 10th Street in McAllen after a night of drinking. She was over double the legal limit.
Uribe’s death left the family in mourning. That grief however has transcended into shock and defeat after learning that Villarreal would only spend four months in jail followed by 10 years probation.
“It was like a punch to our faces,” Uribe’s eldest granddaughter, 25-year-old Janie Rosas, said.
Her mother, 42-year-old Maria Molina, said she felt indignant regarding the sentence Villarreal received and believes the court saw her father’s life as unimportant.
Molina expected Villarreal to receive at least five years in prison and her daughter, Rosas, thought that at least 10 years would’ve given her family a sense of justice, but they said they received neither.
The grieving daughter said that following Villarreal’s guilty plea, Hidalgo County District Attorney Toribio “Terry” Palacios, spoke to them regarding the sentencing process.
He told Molina that her family would take the stand and speak on her dad’s behalf and then the sentencing would be handed down, but added that there might be a “conditional freedom.”
“Even at that point, I wanted to believe that wouldn’t happen,” Molina said in Spanish. “I felt that if they gave her at least five years I wouldn’t have felt so indignant regarding the situation because I know conditional freedom existed, but there had to have been certain conditions for that.
“She killed my dad, but during the course of her leaving the bar to the point when the accident happened, she put everyone around her in danger.”
Molina revealed that, despite what the official report says, her dad didn’t die instantly. He was conscious before his 2001 maroon Chevrolet Blazer was engulfed in flames.
She knows this because one of the witnesses from that night had been so affected by the crash, he sought to find Uribe’s wife’s address and spoke to her regarding that night.
Molina says there were three to four witnesses that night who attempted to rescue Uribe through the passenger side after his vehicle rolled over three times and was seconds away from exploding.
The witness claimed that the first responder at the scene never checked on Uribe and went directly to help Villarreal, which angered him causing him to yell at the police officer who only asked him to calm down.
“He says he can’t forget the look on my dad’s face begging for help,” Molina said.
Uribe’s family described him as loving, respectful toward others and taught his kids and grandkids to do the right thing.
“He was like a second father to me,” Rosas said. “He was always in a good mood. He was always a happy man. We never knew a grumpy grandpa. He was a happy grandpa to everybody, to his grandchildren and his great grandchildren.”
The family didn’t find out that Uribe had been burned beyond recognition until days later because they said police refused to speak to them.
It wasn’t until the family sought the help of the nonprofit organization Rio Grande Valley Family and Friends of Murdered Children that the police called the family back to tell them they could talk to them now, they said.
They had also been hearing about how Villarreal has an influential family and still works for Ortiz. Now, she’s an attorney.
The family also learned that two judges, state District Judges Fernando Mancias and Rodolfo Gonzalez, wrote character letters on Villarreal’s behalf. The judges were even subpoenaed for the sentencing.
At the sentencing, Villarreal’s parents testified before the court about their daughter’s accomplishments which Uribe’s family felt was insulting as it had nothing to do with the fact she killed Uribe.
Molina says that her father was a law-abiding citizen with a clean record too. He was the type of man who would drink at home and wouldn’t think of touching his car after the fact.
Villarreal also violated her probation several times. Court records show that she’s taken 101 total tests and has skipped 15, been late to 11 of them and failed on five separate occasions.
“The sentence they gave her is ridiculous,” Molina said. “It’s hurtful because it was my dad, but it’s also hurtful because we don’t have an influential family to speak for us. My father couldn’t receive justice. It’s something absolutely outrageous.”
Before his death, the family would have breakfast together on the weekends and cookouts on Sundays in his garden. Molina and her dad would celebrate their birthdays together since they were so close together.
“We’ve already had one Christmas without him,” Molina said. “It was something very hard. These people can’t even imagine. That’s why I think it’s a joke that the judge said he didn’t want to ruin someone else’s life, as if it didn’t matter that she ruined our lives and my dad’s life.”
State District Judge Mario Ramirez passed the sentencing on Sept. 29.
“It felt like they already had the sentence set. He already knew what he was going to say, so why make us go through all of this? You know, relive the accident, have each one of us tell our story and how we feel for him to just say, ‘Here you go, bye,’” Rosas said.
