Izaiah Garcia was sentenced Thursday to life plus 2½ years in prison for fatally shooting a 17-year-old Sandia High School student outside a homecoming party in 2019.
The sentencing comes more than a year and a half after a 2nd Judicial District Court jury found Garcia guilty of first-degree depraved-mind murder in the fatal shooting of Sean Markey, who was struck by a stray bullet after he and a friend left the party in Northeast Albuquerque and were waiting for a ride home.
The life sentence requires that 22-year-old Garcia must serve 30 years before he becomes eligible for parole.
Jurors also found Garcia guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for shooting at a second man, Christian Mattock, described by prosecutors as the intended target of the shooting on Sept. 29, 2019. That conviction carried an additional 2½ years in prison.
In a separate case, Garcia is charged with first-degree murder for the 2019 shooting death of Cayla Campos, 21, who was playing Pokémon Go with her boyfriend when her car was sprayed with bullets.
Campos was killed Oct. 18, 2019, less than three weeks after Markey’s killing. That trial is scheduled to begin in September.
In yet another criminal matter, Garcia has been charged with attempted murder and other charges for his role in the stabbing of another inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in April 2022. That case has not been scheduled for trial.
At Garcia’s August 2021 trial, prosecutors told jurors that Markey’s death stemmed from a years-old dispute between Garcia and Mattock that became violent after the two showed up at a Sandia High School homecoming party in the 3900 block of Garcia NE, near Montgomery and Eubank.
Garcia confronted Mattock in the street outside the party, drew a pistol, and began chasing and shooting at Mattock as he ran down the street, prosecutors told jurors.
Mattock was uninjured by the gunfire, but one round ricocheted off a driveway and struck Markey as he and a friend were sitting on a landscape rock waiting for a ride.
Garcia’s attorney, Nicole Moss, told jurors that the prosecution’s case was weak because at least seven people were firing guns at the time Markey was shot.
Moss said prosecutors could not show that Garcia fired the fatal round because at least five people were shooting 9mm guns, which is the type of round that fatally struck Markey.
