He opened fire on a Pasco apartment 26 years ago. This week he admitted killing a man

A 41-year-old man has pleaded guilty to his role in the 1995 fatal shooting of a Pasco father, who was asleep on an apartment balcony.

Ezequiel Romero was 15 when he and three other gang members opened fire on the apartment.

Their intended target was the victim’s 18-year-old son, who was wounded.

Romero — who also has used the first name of Raul — entered the plea Wednesday in Franklin County Superior Court to one count of second-degree manslaughter.

He originally was charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, but prosecutors and the defense negotiated to the reduced charge.

“I think it was a combination of the fact that the case was old, and I think finding witnesses to testify for a case that old was going to prove very difficult,” Scott Johnson, Romero’s lawyer, told the Tri-City Herald.

“Also, our client was 15 at the time it happened and so the state had to factor in his youthfulness when they made a sentencing recommendation.”

Judge Cameron Mitchell gave Romero a sentence above the standard range at three years.

Romero has to serve about seven more months before he can be released, said Johnson.

Series of shootings

The July 5, 1995, attack came at the end of a weeklong series of gang shootings.

A carload of gang members went hunting for Michael Elizondo and spotted him standing at the sliding glass door of a second-floor apartment on Agate Street.

Elizondo, who was 18 at the time, had been the target of two other shootings in the days leading up to it.

While one person stood guard, Romero and three others unloaded a hail of bullets at the balcony, according to court documents.

Elizondo was hit once in the butt. His 53-year-old father, Andres Elizondo, was killed as he slept outside.

Neighbors at the time told the Herald that Andres Elizondo was a hard-working farm laborer who brought them produce. They said he liked to sleep on the balcony during the summer heat and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The neighboring apartment also was hit by bullets, but no one was hurt.

Pasco police detectives found 32 spent shell casings at the scene, according to Herald stories at the time.

Four other people — including two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old — were arrested, convicted and served time.

Return to U.S.

Prosecutors have said Romero fled to Mexico soon after the deadly shooting.

He first resurfaced in early 2019 when he contacted a Tri-Cities lawyer to quash a Franklin County warrant on an unrelated 1995 weapons charge.

Romero was still in Mexico when he made that contact.

Then, on Oct. 17, 2019, Pasco police got word from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official in Utah that Romero bought a ticket for a flight from Guadalajara to Salt Lake City.

Larry Overcast, Utah’s port director, and Pasco police Sgt. Bill Parramore worked together to confirm it was the same person. They identified Romero by a tattoo on his back.

When police arrived in Utah to arrest Romero, he showed them paperwork that the unrelated juvenile warrant had been taken care of.

He apparently was not aware that he also had been wanted on the murder, and “admitted he was thee when the shooting happened, armed with a gun,” documents said.

Romero was flown back to Franklin County, and has been in jail since on $1 million bail.