Man sentenced to 140 years to life in prison for triple murder in Reading
Apr. 10—A New York man was sentenced Tuesday to 140 years to life in state prison after being found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder stemming from three shootings in Reading.
Jairo Guerrero-Bautista, 21, whose last known address was in the Bronx, was convicted by a Berks County jury in March following a trial before President Judge M. Theresa Johnson.
Johnson sentenced him Tuesday for conspiring with Jonathan Torres and two unidentified men to shoot and kill Marli Alonso, 18; Omar Harris, 19; and Joel Cintrón, 20, all of Reading, in the 600 block of Moss Street on Dec. 12, 2018.
Because Guerrero-Bautista was a juvenile at the time of the killings but tried as an adult, the maximum possible sentence on each murder count, plus one count of conspiracy to commit murder, was 35 years to life in state prison. Johnson gave him the maximum sentence.
Prosecutors said Guerrero-Bautista conspired with Jonathan Torres, age unavailable, of Reading and two unidentified men in the murders.
The three victims were believed to be friends and lived near the scene of the killings, investigators said.
Alonso belonged to a group that had a rivalry with Guerrero-Bautista's group, investigators said.
Cintron and Alonso died at the scene. Harris died in Reading Hospital the following morning.
Torres pleaded guilty in February to three counts of third-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Johnson sentenced him to 25 to 50 years in a state prison.
The investigation continues regarding the other two defendants, prosecutors said.
Court documents gave this account:
Reading police were dispatched to the scene of the shooting following several calls of gunshots in the area. They found the three victims, all of whom had suffered gunshot wounds.
After reviewing surveillance footage, they saw that before the shooting a grey Acura TL had parked near Mulberry and Greenwich streets, about a block from the shooting scene.
Four men could be seen getting out of the vehicle and walking through an alley toward the 600 block of Moss Street, where the shooting took place a short time later.
Immediately after the shooting, the same four men could be seen running from Moss Street and back to the vehicle, and then they drove off.
When interviewing friends of Alonso's, police investigators learned Guerrero-Bautista had threatened him. Following the shooting, Guerrero-Bautista sent Facebook messages referring to Alonso being dead, and he sent an audio message containing him rapping a self-written song that included details of the triple homicide.
"He start acting tuff, gotta blow 'em down," were among the lyrics. Guerrero-Bautista told the other male that he wanted to rap slowly because he "wants the people to understand it."
During an unrelated police investigation into Torres, investigators seized two cellphones of his and found several videos. They included one Torres recorded several hours before the shooting from the front passenger seat of an Acura TL in which he was waving a semiautomatic firearm.
Another video recorded about 10 minutes before the shooting included Torres saying he was going to shoot someone, and saying he was "bouta make a point, bro."
There were also several videos shot in the weeks following the killings showing Torres at the scene where the shootings took place, including one of him walking by smiling.
The investigation of nearby cellular towers confirmed that Torres made the calls and videos near the shooting scene.
Investigators also found Facebook posts that Torres made about the killings, and obtained several recorded telephone calls from county and state prisons in which Torres spoke in code with others about the homicides.
