SMITH COUNTY, Texas — Gustavo Zavala-Garcia pleaded guilty Thursday to the murder of his niece, 10-year-old Kayla Gomez-Orozco. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Zavala-Garcia, 26, appeared at a hearing Thursday morning to enter his plea.
District Attorney Jacob Putman says the defendant was found intellectually disabled under the new Supreme Court orders. Such claims were supported by a mental health expert.
Giving those findings, the state decided not to seek the death penalty.
"[The] Supreme Court has denied Kayla's family and our community, the justice they deserve," district attorney Jacob Putman said.
The Case
On Sunday, Nov. 6, detectives discovered the body of 10-year-old Kayla Gomez-Orozco in a well behind a home in Bullard, about three miles from where Kayla disappeared on Nov. 1 at the Bullard First Assembly Church.
Gustavo Zavala-Garcia, Kayla's uncle, was immediately a suspect and arrested on immigration hold. The next day, Nov. 7, Zavala-Garcia was charged with capital murder. His bond was set at $10 million.
On January 27, 2017, a grand jury formally indicted Zavala-Garcia for the crime.
Prosecutors, led by then Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham, said Zavala-Garcia struck Kayla with and against a blunt object, choked her and drowned her.
While awaiting a pre-trial hearing in Feb. 2018, Zavala Garcia climbed a basketball hoop in the recreational area of the Smith County Jail, before climbing to the top of the building. No one was seriously injured in the incident.
On May 31, 2017 a pre-trial hearing established the charges of capital murder, and prosecutors went on record with their evidence of almost 4,000 pages and more than 100 gigabytes of digital information.
Remaining evidence was unfinished due to the need for forensic testing, an issue that would continually to delay Zavala-Garcia’s trial date.
The trial was originally set for Oct. 2017. It was later moved to Feb. 2018, after prosecutors introduced interviews with children described as witnesses as evidence.
When March 21, 2018 arrived, the defense asked to have the trial moved to February 2019, as DNA trace evidence results would not be back from Texas DPS until July.
In May 2018, ten pieces of clothing were submitted as evidence to be tested for DNA, the trial was set for October 2018.
In October, the state and defense agreed more DNA testing was needed so the trial was again delayed until May 2019, which would later become July 2019.
Following another pre-trial hearing in which Zavala-Garcia’s lawyers requested the case be moved out of Smith County, and a canceled May 2 pre-trial hearing, Zavala-Garcia entered the court room for yet another pre-trial hearing.
This time, he entered a guilty plea, after accepting a plea bargain from the prosecutors. The chief reason for the plea bargain was the mental state of Zavala-Garcia.
According to the DA, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot execute an intellectually disabled capital murder defendant, regardless of the severeness of the crime.
Doctors for both the state and the defense evaluated Zavala-Garcia and determined he was intellectually disabled and therefore not eligible for execution.
"Faced with the reality of the state of the law, and knowing there would be no way to achieve a valid death sentence, we entered into a plea agreement with Mr. [Zavala-Garcia] that resulted in life without parole," Putman said. "He will never be released and he will die in prison."
Because he pleaded guilty, Zavala-Garcia cannot appeal the court's sentence or file for motion to have a trial.
Zavala-Garcia requested to be placed into the custody of the Texas Department of Correctional Institutions Division as soon as possible. The judge granted the decision.