SAN ANTONIO – In what was a surprise 11th-hour plea last fall, Rudy Smith, 40, admitted to killing Ruben Sanchez on the afternoon of August 12, 2016.
On Monday, Smith learned his punishment: life in prison.
Sanchez’s father said his son was working on his car in the driveway of the family home.
Accused killer accepts 11th hour plea agreement
Testifying prior to Smith’s sentencing Monday, Sanchez said that he heard a ‘pop’ and dashed outside where he saw Smith standing over his son’s body.
“I said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?” Sanchez testified. “And he had a gun in his hand, and he went, ‘Yeah.' He said to my son, ‘I got you.'”
“I would like to see him get the high part – the death penalty – for what he did,” Sanchez told Judge Jefferson Moore prior to Smith’s sentencing.
Moore also sentenced Smith 45 years in prison on a separate charge of attempted capital murder.
The sentences will run concurrently.
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Moore was captured three weeks after Sanchez’s murder during a shootout with members of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force.