Erin man gets 18 years for murder of Venezuelan migrant

Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A 21-year-old man from Erin has been sen­tenced to 18 years in prison af­ter ad­mit­ting to mur­der­ing a Venezue­lan mi­grant af­ter com­mit­ting a rob­bery in 2022.

Tyrece Austin, of Ran­cho Que­ma­do, Erin, re­ceived the sen­tence on Wednes­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to mur­der, pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion, and three counts of rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion be­fore Jus­tice Nali­ni Singh.

Austin was al­lowed to plead guilty to the cap­i­tal of­fence as he was 17-years-old when he com­mit­ted the crime with a neigh­bour and could not face the manda­to­ry death penal­ty.

Austin and 24-year-old Joseph Aguillera were charged with mur­der­ing 24-year-old labour­er An­dres Lopez in Ju­ly 2022.

Lopez and a Venezue­lan friend were pur­chas­ing food from a cart lo­cat­ed along the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road when two men pos­ing as cus­tomers robbed them, the cart’s Venezue­lan op­er­a­tor and his wife.

The cart op­er­a­tor was pis­tol-whipped be­fore the men took $1,000 from him. The men took cell phones from his wife and Lopez’s friend, and a small quan­ti­ty of cash from Lopez be­fore run­ning away.

Lopez and his friend chased af­ter the men.

Lopez was shot in his head as he at­tempt­ed to con­front one of the men as they ran through the car park of a Chi­nese restau­rant.

He was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment but died a few days lat­er while ward­ed at hos­pi­tal.

Austin was ar­rest­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers hours af­ter the rob­bery and shoot­ing.

Al­though he ini­tial­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing, the of­fi­cers found a quan­ti­ty of cash and a Venezue­lan reg­is­tra­tion card of one of the vic­tims in his pock­et.

Aguillera was pre­vi­ous­ly al­lowed to plead guilty and sen­tenced based on felony mur­der, un­der which the manda­to­ry death penal­ty is waived in cir­cum­stances where death oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.

Pre­sent­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea on Austin’s be­half, his lawyers Rosh­ni Balka­ran and Shi­va Boodoo plead­ed for le­nien­cy.

They called on Jus­tice Singh to con­sid­er Austin’s age and the fact that he had a chal­leng­ing up­bring­ing and was forced to help pro­vide for his fam­i­ly af­ter his fa­ther left.

They al­so not­ed that Austin used his time on re­mand to im­prove his ed­u­ca­tion by at­tain­ing CSEC pass­es and was re­morse­ful.

Pros­e­cu­tor Josi­ah Soo Hon pre­sent­ed a vic­tim im­pact state­ment from Lopez’s sis­ter.

She said that her broth­er was the bread­win­ner of their fam­i­ly and claimed that their moth­er was di­ag­nosed with sev­er­al med­ical con­di­tions which she sug­gest­ed were as a re­sult of the grief she suf­fered from her son’s mur­der.

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing the ev­i­dence in the case and fac­tor­ing in dis­counts for his guilty pleas, Jus­tice Singh de­cid­ed on 18 years for mur­der, ten years for firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion, and eight years for each of the rob­bery charges.

She or­dered that the sen­tences be served con­cur­rent­ly mean­ing that Austin would have to serve the longest sen­tence be­fore be­ing re­leased.

Jade Charles and Khi Cam­bridge ap­peared along­side Soo Hon for the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).