The suspect charged in a shooting that killed a four-year-old Albuquerque girl during what police say was a road-rage fight has been sentenced to 16 years in prison on a second-degree murder charge.
Tony Torrez apologized to the victim’s family at his plea hearing Thursday, a day after he accepted a plea deal with prosecutors.
His jury trial had been scheduled to start Thursday before he agreed to the deal in the October 2015 shooting.
Lilly Garcia, a preschooler, and her older brother were in the backseat of their father Alan Garcia’s pickup truck, heading home from school, when a lane-change dispute on Interstate-40 between Garcia and Torrez escalated.
Lilly was struck with a bullet in the back of the head and died at University of New Mexico Hospital.
In a police interview last year, Torrez told investigators that Garcia had run him off the road and that he feared for his life when he shot at the family’s truck with the intention of firing off warning shots. He said he did not know children were in the backseat.
Torrez was originally charged with first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence.
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Alan and Veronica Garcia brought photographs of their daughter Lilly to court, propping one large image of the victim smiling and wearing pink cowboy boots against a courtroom bench.
Through tears, Veronica Garcia recalled in court how she rushed to the hospital the day of the killing, and described the toll the shooting has taken on her family.
In the months following her daughter’s death, she became a vocal advocate for tougher crime laws and agreed to have a proposed law that would have expanded the state’s three-strikes statute named for her daughter.
The shooting also led to an anti-road rage campaign across the state, and a law enforcement initiative called “Operation Lilly,” which led authorities to place more state and Albuquerque police vehicles on patrols for several months.
Torrez has an arrest record, but no prior felony convictions, according to online court records. He had a previous arrest on domestic violence and aggravated battery charges but evaded prosecution in the case and others, including an altercation that police said followed a dispute over a lane change in a parking structure.
-With files from Mary Hudetz of the Associated Press
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