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A 32-year-old Pharr man has been sentenced to two decades in prison for the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man in 2017 following an argument over Xanax.
Omar Perez Garcia pleaded guilty to murder last Thursday and was sentenced to 20 years, court records indicate.
Garcia was charged along with his cousin, 24-year-old Alamo resident Peter Isiah Uvalle, for the Dec. 15, 2017 shooting of Jonathan Jose Alcala in the 800 block of West Coyote Trail in Pharr.
Alcala was shot in the back.
Uvalle was sentenced to 35 years in prison on March 11, 2020 after a jury convicted him of murder following a trial. He has appealed.
The shooting that day happened at approximately 1:30 a.m.
A probable cause affidavit stated that Alcala had been hanging out in front of his parents house when a 2006 GMC truck driven by Garcia pulled up. Uvalle was a passenger and one of the men called out to Alcala, according to the affidavit.
Santiago Alonso Aguirre, a 26-year-old Pharr resident, had been hanging out with Alcala. He told police he heard an argument followed by gunshots, the affidavit said.
He told investigators that as he watched Alcala try to run away, he fired a few rounds from a shotgun in the truck’s direction, hitting Uvalle in his upper body and leaving Garcia with abrasions.
Aguirre has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, tampering with evidence and manufacturing/delivering a controlled substance.
He has pleaded not guilty and his case is ongoing. He remains free on a total of $40,000 in bonds.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice records indicate that Uvalle is not eligible for parole until 2035. Those records list his projected release date as being in 2052.
