San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon said the plea resolves all of the cases that came out of an incident on the night of April 28, 2023, when Francisco Torres Oropeza murdered five of his neighbors. Dillon said the plea will ensure that Oropeza will remain in the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice until his death.
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Following the murders, Oropeza led police on a five-day manhunt that involved hundreds of state, local, and federal law enforcement officers.
Breitbart Texas reported extensively on the case and was in the courtroom in August 2023 when Oropeza entered his not-guilty plea.
The victims of the alleged murders were previously identified by the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office as:
- Julisa Molina Rivera, age 31
- Sonia Argentina Guzman, age 25
- Diana Velazquez Alvarado, age 21
- Jose Jonathan Casarez, age 18
- Daniel Enrique Laso, age 9
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told Breitbart News in 2023 that Oropeza had been removed from the United States on four occasions.
An immigration judge first ordered Francisco Oropeza Perez-Torres, 38, to be removed from the United States on March 19, 2009. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers deported the migrant to Mexico later that month.
After this, Oropeza illegally re-entered the U.S. and was removed once again in September 2009. He was removed two more times in January 2012 and July 2016.
In January 2012, a Texas court in Montgomery County (which neighbors San Jacinto County, where the alleged murders took place) convicted the Mexican national of driving while intoxicated. The court sentenced him to an unreported period of incarceration.
Members of both the victims’ and the defendant’s families were present in the courtroom.
During tear-filled victim impact statements, Oropeza stared at the speakers without any expression. When Breitbart Texas asked the defense team about this after the hearing, attorney Anthony Osso said they advise all clients not to express any emotion during these statements. When pressed on whether Oropeza ever expressed any remorse for the killings, Osso said, “He stepped up and took responsibility, and he signed up for prison for the rest of his life. He will never live a life like the one he lived when he was in the free world.”
Osso added, “Yes, he was remorseful. We have a nine-year-old boy that was shot. He was remorseful.
Dillon explained the plea agreement process, stating:
The plea bargain of life without parole was extended to Oropeza’s defense counsel only after several meetings with the families of Oropeza’s victims and the prosecution team. These meetings were conducted in Spanish and did not conclude until all of the family members questions were answered and until they were able to voice their opinions on punishment to senior members of the District Attorney’s Office. In the end, the consensus was that a plea of life without parole would spare the trauma and risk of a trial while assuring that Oropeza will suffer the consequences of his actions until he dies. Follow-up meetings were also conducted in Spanish, to ensure this was the just and desired result.
The projected cost of a single death-capital murder trial would have exceeded the county’s annual budget for court-appointed attorneys by 400%. Further, no trial has a guaranteed result, and the financial strain of appeals would continue after the trial.
In the 411th District Court, Judge Albert McCaig accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Francisco Torres Orepeza to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Oropeza will never breathe another breath of free air for the rest of his life, and San Jacinto County will never have to worry that he is a threat to any of its citizens,” Dillon’s written statement concluded.
In a press conference following the hearing, Dillion told reporters the family will have the opportunity to sleep without worry that Oropeza will ever be free again. “The biggest thing for them is the certainty of what’s going to happen,” Dillon told reporters. “They don’t have to guess. They don’t have to worry what’s going to happen.”
“They know he will be in prison until he dies,” the district attorney continued. “It is a death sentence of its own, just that he’ll die in prison.”
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday morning talk show. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products.
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