PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A California man was convicted of murder on Monday in a fatal shooting that occurred outside an Oregon quinceanera - a coming-of-age celebration for 15-year-old Latinas.
Miguel Alejandro Iniguez, 30, shot and killed another man in July outside the North Bend community center last summer, in what Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier called an alcohol-fueled argument between two groups. The father of the girl having the celebration asked the groups to leave, but the disagreement merely moved to the parking lot.
Iniguez testified in his own defense Friday, repeatedly saying he did not intend to kill Luis Mario Castillo Murillo, 21. After the gun went off, Iniguez said, the crowd turned on him, so he ran.
But Chief Deputy Medical Examiner Kris Karcher testified that the fatal shot was a “contact” gunshot, explaining that the barrel of the gun was in direct contact with the back of the victim’s head when it was fired.
Iniguez was also convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, Frasier said after the verdict was read in a Coquille courtroom. He was found not guilty of first-degree theft after testifying that he didn’t steal his friend’s .45-caliber automatic handgun, as the prosecution said, but was asked to hold it in case anything were to happen at the party.
The Coos Bay World reported that much of Friday’s closing arguments focused on Iniguez’s frame of mind when the gun went off, and whether his reaction reflected guilt.
Iniguez got rid of the weapon, attempted to conceal the spare clip of bullets in a backyard and then attempted to conceal his identity at Walmart while trying to get a ride to the bus station.
He will be sentenced May 4. He faces a mandatory life sentence, with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
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