SAN ANTONIO – An emotional blend of sorrow and anger marked a sentencing hearing for Faustino Vasquez Wednesday afternoon.
Vasquez, 34, was convicted last week of killing Pete Gonzales, 45, outside the 210 Kapone nightclub that Gonzales owned on the night of March 16, 2015.
He had been ordered to leave the club following a fight and as he drove away fired several shots into a group of people standing outside.
Gonzales was struck in the chest and died a few hours later in the hospital.
“They cry for him and say ‘Why daddy, why daddy, why did you leave us?’” Felicia Fernandez testified during the hearing, as she told how Gonzales’ 6-year-old twin daughters reacted when told of his death.
Fernandez, the children’s mother, said her 11-year-old son too struggles with his father’s death.
“My son wanted to die with him,” she said. “He said ‘I just want to go into the grave with him.’”
Gonzales’ sister, Felisha Gonzales, too discussed the impact of the murder on her brother’s children.
“I’m angry, because today isn’t the end of it,” she said. “I just see those children, who are going to grow up and they’re not going to have a daddy to work for them the way my brother worked for them.”
Judge Raymond Angelini sentenced Vasquez to life in prison.