Izaiah Garcia to serve back-to-back life sentences

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Izaiah Garcia to life plus 13 years in prison in the fatal shooting of a woman playing Pokémon Go with her boyfriend at a Northeast Albuquerque park in 2019.

District Judge Joseph Montano also stacked the new sentence on top of an earlier life sentence Garcia received for an unrelated murder conviction.

The back-to-back life sentences alone will require Garcia, 24, to serve at least 60 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Garcia’s attorney, Kelly Golightley, asked the judge to run the two life sentences concurrently.

“I think it would be unnaturally punitive to simply run a life sentence on top of a life sentence,” Golightley said at her client’s sentencing hearing.

She called it “political theater, unfortunately, by putting someone in prison for life more than once.”

In February, a 2nd Judicial District Court jury found Garcia guilty of first-degree murder in the 2019 fatal shooting of 21-year-old Cayla Campos while she was at Bianchetti Park playing Pokémon Go, a game played with a mobile device.

Jurors deliberated less than a day before finding Garcia guilty of seven felonies in all, including armed robbery, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, tampering with evidence and conspiracy.

Campos and her boyfriend were driving on a residential street when they drove up on an armed robbery beside the park near Chelwood Park and Lomas NE.

Campos turned around and was attempting to drive away when she was shot in the head on Oct. 18, 2019.

Garcia maintained his innocence during his remarks at his sentencing hearing and claimed evidence was withheld during his trial.

“I forgive everyone the wrongdoings and the false claims,” Garcia said, speaking by Zoom from the Metropolitan Detention Center. “I hope and pray that the truth is found and will bring proper closure to the victim’s family because justice is not being served properly to the family, nor I.”

Members of Campos’ family asked Montano to run the two life sentences concurrently.

“As a parent, the worst pain you can absolutely go through experiencing a child,” said Campos’ father, Carl Campos. Cayla Campos was studying to be an oral surgeon and had plans to move to Arizona in December 2019 to attend school.

“Her life would be an amazing journey to continue to watch,” Carl Campos told the judge. “But now that it has been taken from us, it is in your hands to decide.”

Garcia’s trial in Campos’ killing resulted in his second murder conviction.

In March 2023, Montano sentenced Garcia to life plus 2½ years in prison after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in an earlier 2019 shooting death.

In that case, Garcia shot 17-year-old Sean Markey, a Sandia High School student, as Markey was waiting for a ride outside a school homecoming party on Sept. 29, 2019.

Campos’ killing was especially tragic because it occurred less than six weeks after Markey’s killing, the judge said before sentencing Garcia.

“I sat through (the testimony) as the jurors did,” Montano said. “It was difficult testimony for everyone to hear. These are two depraved-mind murders in such a short time span that need to be accounted for and taken into consideration when coming up with the sentence.”

Assistant Attorney General John Duran, the lead prosecutor in the Campos trial, argued that Garcia fired the fatal shots at Campos’ vehicle in the mistaken belief that he was shooting at a hated rival. Prosecutors alleged in both trials that the intended target was Christian Mattock.

Jurors in 2021 found Garcia guilty of aggravated assault for shooting at Mattock at the scene of Markey’s killing.