Convictions upheld in fatal shooting of 13-year-old in 2010

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the convictions of a man who shot and killed a 13-year-old Wichita boy through the front door of his home on Father’s Day in 2010.

In his appeal, 24-year-old Eli Betancourt argued that the trial court made several errors and that he received an ineffective defense when he was tried in 2011 on first-degree murder and criminal discharge of a firearm in the death of Miguel Angel Andrade Martinez.

Miguel was sleeping on a couch at the home he shared with his mother and siblings, waiting for his father to pick him up, when he heard a knock on the door and rose to answer it on June 20, 2010. As he turned the knob, he was shot 10 times by two teens – one of them Betancourt – waiting on the other side.

Witnesses at trial testified that the shooting was an attempt to avenge a gang-related fight three weeks earlier involving one of Betancourt’s brothers. But the gunmen went to the wrong house.

Betancourt is serving a life prison sentence. His brother Alejandro Betancourt Jr., Edward Laurel and Gregory Patton also were convicted of the teen’s killing.

In a ruling released Friday morning, the state’s high court held that attorneys presented sufficient evidence at Betancourt’s trial and rejected assertions that trial errors or constitutional violations occurred, according to a news release from the state Office of Judicial Administration announcing the ruling.

Betancourt on appeal had argued several issues, including claims that the court erred in admitting some statements he made to law enforcement and hearsay statements from one of his co-defendants and that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of premeditated murder.

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Convictions upheld in fatal shooting of 13-year-old in 2010."