A Philadelphia man was found guilty of killing two people in a Warminster home more than 15 years ago.
On Monday afternoon, jurors convicted Alfonso Sanchez of killing Lisa Diaz, 27, and Mendez Thomas, 22, in Warminster in 2007. He was also found guilty of trying to have a witness killed while he was awaiting a retrial.
The same Bucks County jury that found Sanchez guilty will now decide if he should be sentenced to death. The penalty phase starts Tuesday.
His co-defendant, Anthony Sparango, of Souderton, was initially scheduled to be tried next with him, however his trial was continued to a later date. County detectives allege Sparango had helped Sanchez while he was in prison.
Sanchez, now 41, had been found guilty in 2008 of killing. In 2017, Sanchez was granted a new trial after it was discovered that DNA lab reports were not handed over to his attorneys during his initial trial, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said at the time.
Prosecutors said at the time that the failure was “inadvertence and oversight,” in which both sides went to trial under the belief that no DNA testing was done.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Lannetti told jurors during his opening statements on April 24 that Sanchez went to Mendez’s Bucks Landing apartment home on Street Road the night of Oct. 17, 2007. Sanchez, along with Steven Miranda and Alexander Martinez went to Mendez’s home under the guise of purchasing marijuana from him, according to Lanetti.
Miranda had some issue with Mendez, Lanetti said. When they arrived, they found Diaz, who was babysitting Mendez and his girlfriend’s children. Mendez and his girlfriend showed up shortly after.
Miranda and Sanchez had some brief altercation, prompting Sanchez to get in between them, according to Lanetti. They were broken up by Diaz, and Sanchez ran after Mendez as he walked away and shot him, he said.
“He kills him instantly,” Lanetti said.
Sanchez then fatally shot Diaz for witnessing the killing, the deputy district attorney said. He shot Mendez’s girlfriend, but she survived, Lanetti said.
The prosecutor said Miranda fled the apartment before the first shot was fired. Martinez fled shortly after.
Miranda and Martinez turned themselves in the next day. Sanchez was found hiding in a home in Montgomery County a week later.
Martinez, now 36, agreed to testify against the men in order to get a lesser sentence. He pleaded guilty to burglary in the case, and was paroled last year. Miranda, now 35, was found guilty of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to life in prison.
Lanetti told jurors that Sanchez, while in prison, tried to have a witness killed in the incident.
“Do people who are not guilty of crimes try to have the witness against the murdered?” he said. “The answer is no.”
Sanchez’s defense attorney Francis Genovese told jurors the evidence would show that it was Miranda, not Sanchez, who was responsible for the killings. The men weren’t at Mendez’s home to hurt him, but to get more drugs, he said.
Miranda, he said, killed the two and injured a third in the shooting.
Genovese also told jurors that said some negative things about the witness while he was in prison, but never wanted to try to kill her.