A jury sentenced Eric Vasquez to 25 years in prison Friday for the road-rage killing of Jay Whitemountain Morales, a San Antonio father of two.
Jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before finding Vasquez, 48, guilty of murder. They took less than an hour to decide his sentence. Defense attorney Michael De Leon had asked them to consider a term of five to 10 years.
“You are a monster,” Morales’ sister Joy Cavazos said in a victim impact statement. “I feel bad for your family that you chose to make that decision that day.”
Vasquez shot Morales in the 6700 block of Spring Hurst Drive as Morales was driving home after picking up medicine for his child. The two men did not know each other, according to San Antonio police.
Prosecutors said Vasquez chased Morales in his vehicle. Morales pulled over at a bus stop to keep Vasquez from following him home. After both men got out of their vehicles, Vasquez shot Morales as he begged for his life, prosecutors said.
Sarah Morales said her husband worked as an appraiser and was a family man with a passion for life. Crying during her victim impact statement, she told Vasquez their baby daughter would never see her father again.
“You have taken her protector, her father, and now she has to grow up without him,” she said.
Neighbors who witnessed the shooting testified at trial. Lorraine Campos said she had left home to buy milk when she saw the men at the bus stop.
“I saw a man holding a gun and another man on the ground that was screaming,” Campos said. “Then the man holding the gun said, ‘Why did you do that? Why did you f-word do that?’”
Vasquez’s first trial ended in a mistrial in May after jurors deliberated for more than six hours without reaching a verdict.
Defense attorney Michael De Leon argued that Vasquez shot Morales in self-defense.
He said Morales opened his car’s trunk at the bus stop, took out one of his two handguns and pointed it at Vasquez. De Leon also said Vasquez cooperated with police at the scene and was allowed to go home, but was arrested months later.