AUSTIN, Texas – Two men have been given prison terms for killing a father of six, who was killed by the gang.
In 2019, Guillermo Gomez was caught off guard in South Austin. While his killers were on trial, his family had to go through the pain of his death again.
“I told him over and over not to trust anyone, and he did.” The husband of Guillermo Gomez’s sister-in-law Amanda Rodriguez said, “He trusted everyone.”
She said that her brother-in-law died because of it.
“It’s still a shock to us,” Rodriguez said.
Gomez, a father of six, was shot and killed almost five years ago.
“They’re hurt still.” They miss their dad. A lot of people talk about him. “Since he’s not with us anymore, he misses football, soccer, volleyball, and basketball games. It’s been a big loss for us,” Rodriguez said.
The date was June 22, 2019. A video on Gomez’s cell phone showed that he left his apartment around 11:45 p.m. and was picked up by Francisco Lopez Jr., 36. Lopez told police that they were going to buy two ounces of meth. They met 47-year-old Evan Zanders at a nearby McDonald’s and then went to the back of the Bainbridge Villas in South Austin. The car came into the complex around 12:37 a.m. and left just six minutes later, as seen on surveillance video from the complex.
“It hurts so much to know that this is where my brother breathed his last breath.” The place where he was killed is in the very, very back. He was killed in the back of this apartment complex, in the dark, in the dark, in the dark, Rodriguez said.
Zanders told the police that Lopez was set up to kill Gomez.
Rodriguez said, “I know he didn’t see this coming.”
A witness told the cops that Gomez owed a lot of money on drugs and that Lopez told them that the cartel told them to kill Gomez.
“Do not get involved with those kinds of things.” Rodriguez said, “Do not get involved, no matter how badly you need money.”
Lopez and Zanders were charged with murder in the first degree. Zanders went to court in January 2023. With his guilty plea, he got 36 years in jail. Lopez had a court date in May.
“It did hurt, reliving everything, seeing everything and hearing the details,” he said.
Lopez was found guilty by a jury and given a sentence of 28 years in jail.
“Nothing’s going to bring, no time is going to bring my brother back, so it doesn’t matter if they give him five, ten years, 20 years, 30 years, life,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez told them she forgives them and also feels bad for their families.
“They could use what they did and how they hurt us as a testimony to other families and bring awareness of the bad things like the drugs and the narcotics that they were doing and selling,” said Rodriguez.