{"id":416022,"date":"2026-08-25T06:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/416022\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T06:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:52:13","slug":"neighbor-sentenced-after-shooting-teen-while-he-buried-pet-guinea-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/416022\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbor sentenced after shooting teen while he buried pet guinea pig"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">HOUSTOBN \u2013 A man was sentenced to prison for shooting a teen who was burying his pet guinea pig last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The shooting happened shortly after midnight on July 25, 2025, in the 7700 block of Belgard Street in southeast Houston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Police said Emmanuel Menchaca, who was 18 years old at the time, had just returned home from work when he went to bury his pet guinea pig, Cookie, on the side of the house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">According to his family, Emmanuel and his younger brother were walking back toward the driveway when a neighbor opened fire without warning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Andrea Menchaca said her son suffered a lacerated liver, lung damage, a punctured diaphragm and severe respiratory distress. He remained in intensive care longer than expected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The suspect, John Martin, accepted a plea deal Monday and was sentenced to nine years in prison, according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTOBN \u2013 A man was sentenced to prison for shooting a teen who was burying his pet guinea&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[294,56,58,57,38133,66,223,95],"class_list":["post-416022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-crime","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-shooting","tag-local","tag-news","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}