Killer of 9-year-old sentenced to death

Erica D. Johnson

Monday, Nov. 3, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.

The man convicted of firing the shots that killed a 9-year-old North Las Vegas girl will be put to death, jurors announced this morning.

Prosecutors had argued for the death penalty against 24-year-old Pascual Lozano, whom jurors convicted of first-degree murder in the September 2002 death of Genesis Gonzales.

Jurors chose the sentence after deliberating for less than two full days. They could have also chosen a sentence of life in prison without parole or life in prison with parole possible after 40 years.

District Judge John McGroarty after the verdict polled jurors about whether they were influenced by a story in Sunday's Review-Journal about lead prosecutor Ed Kane.

Gonzales was struck by a stray bullet as she played in the courtyard of her apartment complex near Civic Center Drive and Cheyenne Avenue with her younger siblings and several other children.

Police say Gonzales was trying to protect a 10-month-old boy when she was shot. Gonzales' 8-year-old sister, Heidi, was shot in the leg but survived.

District Judge John McGroarty will sentence Lozano on two additional counts of attempted murder at a later date.

During the trial Chief Deputy District Attorneys Ed Kane and Vickie Monroe argued that the bullet that struck Gonzales was actually meant for a man named Robert Valentine.

They say Lozano was chasing Valentine, a rival gang member, through the courtyard and firing shots at him when Gonzales was shot.

During the penalty phase that followed the trial, prosecutors informed jurors of Lozano's long history of crime, including a conviction in 1997 stemming from a shooting in which three people were injured.

But Deputy Special Public Defenders Ivette Maningo and Brett Whipple had maintained that Lozano was not the triggerman. They said the gunman was an associate of Lozano's who admitted to being at the scene when the shooting occurred.

During both the trial and the penalty phase of the case, several jurors openly wept during emotional testimony from the Gonzales family.

Gunshot residue was found on Lozano's shirt following the shooting and his fingerprint was found in the car police believe was the getaway vehicle.

Still, few witnesses were able to positively link Lozano to the shooting. Gonzales' 14-year-old sister, Tannia, who was babysitting the children at the time of the shooting, said she saw a man firing shots in an alley moments after the incident.

She said she was not sure, however, if the man she saw was Lozano. She also said she could not determine the shooter's ethnicity.

Several defense witnesses testified that they saw a black man with a gun flee the scene in the moments following the shooting. Lozano is Hispanic.