Guilty plea expected in capital murder
BROWNSVILLE -- The man believed to be the ringleader of the four people accused of killing a Harlingen woman in 2009 and stuffing her body in a refrigerator is expected to plead guilty next week, state prosecutor Luis Saenz said.
Marco Antonio Barrientes, 21, is due in court Tuesday morning, likely to enter a guilty plea to capital murder in the death of Rose Marie Gonzalez, 35, Saenz said.
The plea would get him life without parole, Saenz said.
Gonzalez was found beaten and strangled Feb. 7, 2009, at her apartment in the Bonita Park Housing Project in Harlingen.
A Cameron County jury found co-defendant Jose Antonio Trevino, 21, guilty of capital murder in October. A 14-year-old boy in the case pleaded guilty in April of 2009, and Israel Martinez, 23, was deemed incompetent to stand trial in April of 2011.
Gonzalez’s mother found her daughter in the refrigerator, badly beaten and with a bag on her head. An autopsy report stated she was sexually assaulted.
The victim, the three men and the teenager drank and did cocaine at her apartment the night she died, police said.
The teenager was sentenced to a 40-year determinate sentence, which is the maximum a juvenile can receive. Martinez remains in a mental hospital but could stand trial if it is determined his mental state has changed. Trevino faces life in prison without parole.
