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Man pleads guilty to amended murder charge
A 20-year-old man from Mexico who is in the United States illegally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder July 29 before Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne.
Narciso Landero-Pons was originally charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the Jan. 16 slaying of Leesburg resident Jose Eduardo Santos-Machado.
Santos-Machado, 27, was found shot to death inside his car, which was still running on Woodberry Road in northeast Leesburg.
On Monday, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Sean Morgan and public defender Wayne Kim, who is representing Landero-Pons in the case, presented Horne with the agreement to amend the first-degree murder charge to second-degree murder and throw out the firearm charge.
Morgan said questions have been raised about whether Landero-Pons was in official custody when he made statements admitting that he shot Santos-Machado.
If a judge ruled that those statements were inadmissible in trial, the commonwealth would have a hard time getting a conviction because the “physical evidence is limited,” Morgan said.
Santos-Machado's two brothers were in the courtroom and told Horne they agreed with the amended charge even though it means Landero-Pons can only be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison instead of up to life.
Horne said that he wants to see a presentencing report before he accepts the plea because if he sees “something in the presentencing report where [Landero-Pons has] been convicted somewhere else of something similar,” he may not accept the plea.
A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Nov. 6 at 9 a.m. for Horne to accept or deny the plea and render a sentence. Both attorneys anticipated the hearing will take about half a day.
During a preliminary hearing March 6, Oneyda Villacorta, Santos-Machado's girlfriend who had also had sexual intercourse with Landero-Pons, said Landero-Pons was jealous of her relationship with Santos-Machado.
Landero-Pons was Villacorta's roommate at an apartment on Fort Evans Road that she shared with her brother, sister-in-law and niece.
She also testified that she and her family have received three letters from Landero-Pons from the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center since his arrest. Villacorta threw away the first letter but turned the next two over to police. They were admitted into evidence.
Also at that March 6 hearing, Sgt. Jake Conner of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office testified. Conner, who speaks Spanish, translated an interview conducted with Landero-Pons shortly after his arrest.
“[Landero-Pons] told me that Oneyda liked Narciso, but Oneyda liked Jose more,” Conner said. “He did indicate that he was jealous.”
During the interview, Landero-Pons admitted to shooting Santos-Machado in the head, Conner testified.
“He told me that after the incident occurred, he went back to the apartment and told Oneyda what happened,” Conner said.
Conner went on to testify that Landero-Pons said he took his bike and put it behind a tree near Woodberry Road, then walked back to Villacorta's apartment. When Santos-Machado walked outside of the apartment, Landero-Pons asked him for a ride to a place where he was “hoping to rent a room.”
After getting Santos-Machado to drive him to Woodberry Road, Landero-Pons said, he pulled the gun out to scare him and then shot him once. Afterward, Landero-Pons said he threw the gun away near the site and rode his bike back to the apartment, Conner said.
Contact the reporter at jwagoner@timespapers.com
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