{"id":1703,"date":"2025-10-15T13:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/1703\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:41:08","slug":"gunman-pleads-guilty-sentenced-in-fatal-shooting-outside-whitehall-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/1703\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunman pleads guilty, sentenced in fatal shooting outside Whitehall store"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Allentown man will serve up to 60 years in prison after admitting to fatally shooting a Palmerton man outside a Whitehall Township store in December<\/a>, becoming the third person to plead guilty in connection with the killing.<\/p>\n

Christian Martinez-Ramos, 35, of Allentown on Monday pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Hector Manuel Garcia Gomez, 46, who was fatally shot Dec. 7 in a parking lot on MacArthur Road, according to Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan.<\/p>\n

As part of a plea agreement, Martinez-Ramos was sentenced by Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg to 30-60 years in prison, Holihan said. Martinez-Ramos had faced felony charges of homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.<\/p>\n

Two other defendants in the case previously pleaded guilty: Garcia Gomez\u2019s wife, Brenda Rodriguez, 52, and Martinez-Ramos\u2019 ex-partner, Liz Pacheco, 37.<\/p>\n

Video surveillance from the shooting showed Garcia Gomez and Rodriguez arrived in a vehicle in the parking lot outside Hot Loco Deals at 1155 MacArthur Road. When Garcia Gomez went into the store, Rodriguez stayed in the car and called Pacheco, giving her their location, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Pacheco relayed that information to Martinez-Ramos, who drove to the parking lot, arriving several minutes later. As Garcia Gomez left the store and started to get in his vehicle, Martinez-Ramos parked behind his vehicle and shot him multiple times, authorities said.<\/p>\n

As an ambulance took Garcia Gomez to a hospital, he called a woman he was having an affair with and said \u201cthe guy from upstairs shot me,\u201d according to authorities. Garcia Gomez and Martinez-Ramos had an altercation before the shooting, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Garcia Gomez died at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez, of Palmerton, in September pleaded guilty<\/a> to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault as part of a plea deal. She faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced, scheduled for November.<\/p>\n

Pacheco, of Allentown, on Oct. 1 pleaded guilty<\/a> to third-degree murder. She was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison, with Holihan noting her cooperation and lack of a criminal record factored into the sentence.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 13, 2025 at 5:14 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Allentown man will serve up to 60 years in prison after admitting to fatally shooting a Palmerton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,46,202,433,182,139,28,432,1653,1654],"class_list":["post-1703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc","tag-whitehall-area","tag-whitehall-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}