Taco Bell killer finally sentenced to prison
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. ( KREX ) — The man convicted in the brutal murder of a 31-year-old Grand Junction man at the North Avenue Taco Bell back in 2011, was sentenced to prison time Monday.
On July 16th of 2011, a Saturday, 19-year-old Jaime Cardenas, along with Christian Fuentes, Lester Miranda-Davis, and Fidel Silva went on a violent and dangerous crime spree throughout Grand Junction.
During the crime spree, they robbed Advanced America, burglarized a home on Chestnut Court and then robbed Teller Arms Liquor at gunpoint. After all that, Cardenas fired shots at what he thought were rival gang members sitting outside the Taco Bell on North Avenue. They were not rival gang members and those shots injured two men and killed a third, Jorge Carrasco.
In the days that followed, investigations led Grand Junction police to getaway driver, Lester Miranda-Davis. Investigators tracked the other assailants to their home state of California. By 2016, police identified Jaime Cardenas as the gunman and found him in a Mexican prison. The Mesa County District Attorney’s office worked for three years to extradite Cardenas to Grand Junction but because Cardenas appeared not to understand the court proceedings, the case stalled, preventing prosecution.
Mesa County Assitant District Attorney, Trish Mahre, tells WesternSlopeNow that Cardenas was recently determined competent and Mesa County prosecutors worked fast to get him sentenced. Now, twelve years later, Cardenas, now age 32, took the deal and pled guilty, to murder in the second degree and assault in the first degree.
Consulting with victims’ families, Judge Gurley ultimately sentenced Cardenas to 75 years in prison and he’ll head to the Colorado Department of Corrections.
