Suspect in 2020 South Lubbock murder case pleads guilty to weapons offense

A 30-year-old man arrested more than four years ago in connection with a fatal shooting at a south Lubbock hotel was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday after admitting to a serious weapons offense.

However, Gilbert Cardona III will not begin serving his 10-year sentence until he completes the 12-year sentence in federal prison imposed on him in 2022 for an unrelated drug offense.

Cardona, who is being held at the Victorville Federal Penitentiary in San Bernardino, California, on an unrelated drug charge, appeared by teleconference in 140th District Court to plead guilty to criminal possession of a weapon, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison.

As part of his plea, prosecutors asked for a dismissal of a murder charge against him in connection with the Jan. 3, 2020, shooting death of 37-year-old Joshua Gomez at the former Ava Hotel in the 3200 block of South Loop 289.

His charges stem from a Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes investigation that was sparked by a call about a shooting at the hotel at 7:45 a.m., where officers found Gomez lying on the floor of the hotel lobby near the entrance with a gunshot wound.

Gomez was still conscious but believed he was dying and told a police officer his shooter was the passenger of a black BMW and identified the driver of the vehicle, the arrest warrant said.

He was taken by ambulance to the University Hospital, where he died.

A bullet casing was found near the white Ford Explorer that Gomez was driving. However, investigators did not find any weapons at the scene, the warrant states.

Investigators met the driver of the BMW, who told investigators he was at the hotel with Cardona and saw him shoot the unarmed Gomez. Another witness at the hotel, a close friend of Gomez, told investigators he spoke with Gomez shortly before the shooting and also said Gomez was unarmed, the warrant states.

Two days later, a third witness told investigators he recorded a conversation with Cardona in which he admitted to being involved in a self-defense shooting. In the recording, Cardona could be heard describing the Ford Explorer and saying a person was armed with a military-style rifle, the warrant said.

Five days after the shooting, members of the Texas Anti-Gang Unit found Cardona at the Executive Inn in the 4400 block of Avenue Q, where he was arrested.

When he was arrested, Cardona admitted to having drugs on him.

In his waistband, officers found a red bag that later turned out to contain more than 188 grams of methamphetamine.

Based on this evidence, Cardona was charged in federal court with possession of 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

During his interview with investigators about the shooting, Cardona said he acted in self-defense but said the man he shot was armed with a handgun. He said he saw a man, who investigators believe was Gomez, standing near the SUV and then heard another voice from the vehicle giving the order to shoot him.

He said he saw the man outside the vehicle cocking a gun while it was in his waistband, but he never pulled the gun out.

Cardona said he fired his gun three times, hitting Gomez once in the upper body.

Cardona was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center, where he remained until April 2022, when he was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison for a federal drug offense.

U.S. District Judge James Hendrix ordered that his prison sentence be served concurrently with the sentence imposed on him for murder.

The settlement offered to Cardona also allowed Gomez's family to provide victim impact statements during the hearing.

Gomez's widow Monica offered her forgiveness to Cardona, whom she described as a frightened and weak-willed person, and said that was what her husband would have wanted.

However, she told him that no amount of prison time could make up for his actions, but that he was exactly where he belonged.

She told Cardona that his behavior that day robbed her daughters of precious moments with their father.

Her eldest daughter, now 23, will never be able to walk down the aisle with her father at her wedding.

Her middle daughter, now 17, was denied a father-daughter dance at her quincinera.

And her youngest daughter, who is now 6 years old, has never even met her father. She recalled her daughter taking her first steps during the mass at her husband's funeral.

“You showed my girls that there are evil people,” she said. “You took away my girls' opportunity to spend special moments with him.”

Monica Gomez described her husband as a kind and loving family man who had his faults but was willing to help anyone who needed help.

She said he took every opportunity to make people laugh.

“He didn’t know any strangers,” she said.

Gomez's father Manuel told Cardona he hoped he would suffer in prison.

“That's not fair. That's not right,” he said.

Mandi Say, Lubbock County's first assistant district attorney, said after the hearing that the dropped murder charge was an unfortunate compromise her office had to make because of Cardona's status as a federal prisoner.

Federal inmates cannot be transferred to other states to face violent crime charges until they have completed their federal sentences.

Meanwhile, inmates in federal prisons are not eligible for parole, meaning Cardona would have to serve the majority of his sentence in a federal prison before he could be released to face the murder charge in state court.

Say said the delay would have affected her agency's ability to hear the case.

“It would not have been an easy case if it had been dealt with immediately after the incident,” she said. “Assuming the trial had started in 2022, there would have been problems even then. They have only gotten worse, and time will only make them worse.”

Suspect in 2020 South Lubbock murder case pleads guilty to weapons offense

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