Man gets life for boy's '98 death
Antonio "Tony" Galvan would have been 19 years old.
But two days before his ninth birthday, he died while playing with his German shepherd puppy in front of his Planeview house as a shotgun blast sprayed across the yard and killed him.
Friday, Sherry Galvan saw Oscar Torres sentenced for a second time to life plus 59 months for his role in killing her son in 1998.
"He drove the car to my house," Galvan told Sedgwick County District Judge Greg Waller. "He could have turned down another street. He could have gone home. He stopped and let them get the guns out of the trunk and said, 'Shoot...' "
Torres' trip to justice was a long one.
A fugitive for nearly eight years, Torres pleaded guilty to first-degree felony murder in the spring of 2007 and was sentenced to life two months later.
But the Kansas Supreme Court overturned that sentence because of a technical mistake Waller made in pronouncing sentence.
"It is unfortunate we're here again today," Waller told Torres. "The Supreme Court could have cleared this up by saying it was harmless error."
Waller corrected the mistake and gave Torres the same sentence.
Torres got life for felony murder in driving the car and 59 months for criminal discharge of a firearm and aggravated assault.
Charlie O'Hara, Torres' attorney, said his client pleaded guilty to save the family from going through another lengthy trial.
A jury convicted Isaac Saiz as the man who fired the deadly shot. He's currently in prison, serving a sentence of more than 75 years without parole.
Four others went to prison. Two more were prosecuted as juveniles and sent to a state youth center.
When Torres was 18, he was freed on a $50,000 bond. He broke off an ankle bracelet that electronically monitored his whereabouts and fled to Mexico.
"America's Most Wanted" highlighted the case in March 2004. In November 2005, police arrested Torres in the state of Durango in central Mexico, based on information provided in an anonymous e-mail tip to the TV program.
In the summer of 1998, Torres had driven six young men and one woman past the Galvan's home in Planeview, in south Wichita.
Two men opened fire. Tony's 14-year-old brother and a friend were sitting on the hood of a car in front of the house. They took cover under the car.
More than a dozen pellets struck 8-year-old Tony in the head and face, killing him.
The shooting actually grew out of a traffic accident that did not involve Tony or anyone else in his family.
One of the suspects, Daniel Medrano, who was 17 in July 1998, confessed that he made up a story that instigated the shooting. Medrano testified that he told his friends that members of a rival street gang had caused the accident.
Medrano and his friends ended up drinking that night and driving around seeking revenge.
Police said the group apparently mistook Tony's brother and friend as rival gang members. The boys were not gang members.
This story was originally published February 6, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Man gets life for boy's '98 death."