Guilty pleas entered in 2023 triple murder on Lebanon’s north side

The trio charged with the 2023 fatal shooting of three young Lebanon residents and the wounding of a fourth person pleaded guilty to criminal homicide charges on Tuesday afternoon, June 2.

Appearing separately before Judge Charles Jones in the Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas, 19-year-old James Fernandez-Reyes, 25-year-old Alex Jadriel Torres-Santos, and 30-year-old Ivan Claudio Rosero admitted their participation in the murders of 8-year-old Jesus Perez-Salome, his 9-year-old brother Sebastian Perez-Salome, and 19-year-old Joshua Lugo-Perez.

The shootings took place on the night of May 30, 2023, at the rear of 444 N. 5th St. on Lebanon’s north side.

Jesus died on the back porch, Sebastian at the hospital. The young brothers were laid to rest in their native Puerto Rico.

A fourth victim, 33-year-old Luis Cancel, was injured, but survived, when a stray round penetrated a common wall in the apartment building.

Torres-Santos and Rosero, who were adults at the time of the killings, each entered pleas to three counts of general criminal homicide and have tentatively been scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 26. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will now try to agree on a specific degree of homicide for which they will be sentenced.

Failing that, Jones will hold “degree of guilt” hearings to determine whether they are guilty of first-degree murder – which carries either a life without parole or a death sentence – or a lesser degree that would avoid a death sentence but still subject them to decades in state prison.

Fernandez-Reyes, the youngest defendant, specifically pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree, premeditated homicide, based on Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf’s belief that he was the instigator of the fatal incident and did most of the shooting that night. Hess Graf cited multiple videos taken before the day of the killings showing Fernandez-Reyes brandishing a .223 caliber, “AR-15 type” rifle. Multiple spent .223 shell casings were found at the murder scene, as were several 9mm casings from a weapon that was never located.

In 2022, while living in Rochester, New York, Fernandez-Reyes was suspected by some of fatally shooting a 12-year-old boy, but was never charged.

All three pleaded guilty on Tuesday afternoon to three counts of homicide, three counts of conspiracy to commit homicide, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, recklessly endangering other persons, conspiracy to commit recklessly endangering, and several firearms offenses.

Torres-Santos pleaded to additional charges of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia, based on contraband found in a search of his apartment.

One by one, each defendant, aided by a Spanish interpreter, took his turn before Jones and admitted that his actions that night fit the definition of the multiple crimes charged. Each acknowledged that he understood the charges, had received the advice of an attorney, was waiving his right to a jury trial, and was pleading guilty freely and voluntarily because he actually did what he was accused of doing.

Because Fernandez-Reyes was 16 years old and a juvenile at the time of the killings, he cannot be sentenced to death, even though his charges were transferred to adult court earlier in the case.

Fernandez-Reyes’ public defender Michael Light said his client has to be sentenced to at least 35 to 70 years in prison, and that a life sentence was still possible.

Speaking after the guilty plea hearings were over, Graf said police and prosecutors have never been able to clearly determine a motive for the shootings, but that it was probably not drug-related. She said possible motives were a personal dispute or retaliation against Lugo, or even simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Torres-Santos and Fernandez-Reyes were arrested without incident a day after the killings. Rosero remained at large for a week before being apprehended. His girlfriend, Tiffany Koziara, was charged with hindering his apprehension and giving false information to law enforcement. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days to 23 months in the Lebanon County Correctional Facility.

At the time of the triple murders, Torres-Santos was a defendant in two earlier Lebanon County criminal prosecutions, both of which involved shootings, and had been released from jail on house arrest.

In each of those earlier cases, Magisterial District Judge Aurelis Figueroa reduced bail from $100,000 to $50,000 and allowed Torres-Santos to be placed on house arrest if he posted the reduced bail in both actions, a total of $100,000. He posted the reduced amount and Lebanon County probation authorities said he was officially placed on house arrest, with electronic monitoring, on April 5, 2023.

Torres-Santos was then picked up on a suspected bail violation on May 5, 2023, but quickly re-released to house arrest because, according to Graf, Figueroa had not properly informed him of the house arrest rules.

Graf said at the time that she considered the $50,000 reduced bail in each of Torres-Santos’ earlier cases to be inadequate, but did not ask a judge to raise bail back to $100,000 or higher, nor did she seek a bail revocation when Torres-Santos was briefly detained for the probation violation.

According to the police affidavit of probable cause filed in court, video on the night of the triple murders showed Torres-Santos wearing his electric monitoring bracelet at the time of the shootings.

“The pleas are the first step towards accepting accountability and responsibility for the losses of life at each defendant’s hands,” said Graf in a statement following the pleadings.

“Justice in a courtroom cannot undo the violence which occurred– it cannot bring the children back to life or heal their families.”