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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   A takeout order, a pack of American Spirits, a gun — and no beer.   
      
   The story of Juan Deras Escalante’s first-degree murder conviction starts   
   five years ago, witnesses say, when a new father declined to buy the then   
   19-year-old a drink outside a Charlotte Mexican restaurant.   
      
   Domingo Venencio-Tapia, 41, died on April 29, 2019 when a bullet struck   
   him in his face and four others were shot into the wall behind him. His   
   newlywed wife, who had given birth 16 days earlier, wasn’t there. Instead,   
   a man he met that night — at the Lempira Restaurant on South Boulevard —   
   held him while he bled out and took his last breath.   
      
   After an eight-day trial, a jury Wednesday found Escalante, now 23, guilty   
   of all charges brought against him: first-degree murder and four counts of   
   discharging a firearm into occupied property.   
      
   “It started over something stupid and snowballed,” Escalante’s lawyer,   
   William Heroy, said to the jury during closing arguments.   
      
   But, he argued, the teen never intended to shoot Venencio-Tapia.   
      
   The shooting   
   Escalante left the restaurant in a friend’s car after Venencio-Tapia   
   refused to buy them a drink, according to witness statements. He hung   
   outside the passenger window and fired five shots.   
      
   Those bullets were supposed to shoot up into the air, Heroy contended.   
      
   As Venencio-Tapia and a few other men shuffled back into the restaurant,   
   the car jolted or hit a curb, and Escalante’s arm fell — firing the   
   bullets lower than intended, Heroy said.   
      
   The friend driving, Gerardo Lagunes, previously pleaded guilty in   
   connection with the crimes, according to a news release from Mecklenburg   
   County’s District Attorney’s Office.   
      
   State prosecutors squelched the defense through witness statements and   
   recorded jail calls.   
      
   “This is my neighborhood,” Escalante said as he readied to pull the   
   trigger, witnesses recalled. He told Venencio-Tapia and two other men he’d   
   shot and killed a man before.   
      
   Then came the bullets, none of which shot into the air.   
      
   Instead, all of them pelted into the building, and one hit its target —   
   Venencio-Tapia, argued state attorneys William Bunting and Austin Butler.   
      
   The fact alone that Escalante fired shots at a building where he knew   
   people were dining was enough to justify the four counts of discharging a   
   firearm into occupied property. Those shots – and the one that struck   
   Venencio-Tapia — also showed intent, which is needed to justify a first-   
   degree murder charge, Bunting said.   
      
   Juan Escalante’s murder trial   
   Escalante and Lagunes fled the scene down South Boulevard. Venencio-Tapia   
   was dead when police arrived.   
      
   Witnesses — including Darcy Luna and Junior Lopez, both testifying in   
   court — remembered Escalante’s curly hair, white shirt and gold chain. It   
   glistened as he hung outside the window, they said.   
      
   Surveillance video showed Escalante and two friends inside Lempira minutes   
   before the shooting. They picked up a to-go order, and Escalante talked to   
   the bartender, video shows.   
      
   Then he moves on to Venencio-Tapia and Lopez’s brother. They all pat their   
   pockets — as if looking for a lighter, Bunting said — before stepping   
   outside the front of the restaurant, video shows.   
      
   Minutes later, footage shows people rushing outside or to the cash   
   register, ready to check out and leave the restaurant. It was now a crime   
   scene.   
      
   Outside, Venencio-Tapia lay in Lopez’s arms. A full, untouched pack of   
   American Spirit cigarettes had fallen next to them.   
      
   Snapchat, phone records lead to murderer   
   Police didn’t find Escalante until May 2019, when an eight-hour standoff   
   with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s SWAT team eventually drew   
   him out of his home. Inside, he had taken Xanax and was drinking alcohol,   
   according to police records.   
      
   In police reports, detectives referenced a confidential source that led   
   officers to Escalante. That source, investigators revealed in court Jan.   
   29, was a cell tower simulator provided by the Secret Service.   
      
   The technology imitates a cell tower and locates persons of interest by   
   connecting to a phone through a building’s walls, The Charlotte Observer   
   reported.   
      
   In court Wednesday, Bunting — the DA’s Office Homicide Unit Chief — showed   
   Snapchat “memories” in his closing argument. Police obtained a saved video   
   Escalante took a day before the fatal shooting at Lempira. It showed him   
   with a Glock, one that matched the suspected murder weapon.   
      
   In court, six of Escalante’s family members sat behind him through the   
   entire trial, shaking their legs as lawyers presented closing arguments   
   and the jury deliberated. They all declined to comment on the trial.   
      
   On the other side, Madeline Tapia-Jones, the victim’s wife, sat with two   
   family members who routinely placed a hand on her shoulder. She declined   
   to comment during the trial and could not be reached following the jury’s   
   final verdict.   
      
   “This boy, he made a choice,” she told WBTV in 2019. “He obviously shot my   
   husband, and because of that he only spent two weeks with our daughter.”   
      
   Remarried and again pregnant, the widow traveled from Indiana to testify   
   and witness the trial.   
      
   Mecklenburg County Judge Justin Davis sentenced Escalante to life without   
   the possibility of parole for the murder charge and an additional 100-168   
   months for shooting into an occupied building. As of Thursday afternoon,   
   he was still being held at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center.   
      
   https://news.yahoo.com/teen-killed-dad-over-beer-172857338.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)