Sara Huerta never knew his name or face, only knew that on one unforgettable morning in late January, he had taken her son and turned her life upside down.
The 17-year-old shooter sat calmly in a Dallas courtroom on Thursday as he was sentenced to 25 years in juvenile justice for murder. He was 16 at the time of the shooting. of Dallas Morning News Typically, the names of minors accused of crimes are not made public.
A probation officer testified that the state had made every effort to keep the boy home and out of the kind of trouble that led to him shooting and killing 15-year-old Moises Huerta Gonzalez multiple times on Jan. 30 in the 2500 block of Southland Avenue.
Huerta has never been briefed and only knows the details he has heard from the prosecutor in the case, Trevor Melvin, or from what he has gleaned in his desperate search for answers.
Huerta took the stand Thursday afternoon but did not address Moises directly, instead telling Judge Sheryl Lee Shannon that he was her happy “golden child” and that she missed him every day.
Tears flowed from her eyes, and Huerta repeatedly looked up at the ceiling, trying to find the right words. She didn’t prepare a letter, instead trusting God to guide her.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “It’s confusing. It’s hard to explain. No mother wants to go through this.”
“Our hearts and chests are so heavy and aching.”
Melvin told Huerta he understood and was sorry. He started to say that there was nothing they could do to bring Moises back to life, but stopped there. He instead asked if there was anything else he wanted the judge to know.
“Nothing,” she replied. there is nothing other than that.”
Moises’ sister, 14-year-old Reina Huerta, said her husband struggled with mental illness but “tried to get through life the best he could.” He was her best friend and someone she looked up to. Now that he’s gone, Reina said, she has no one to talk to.
The day Moises died, Reyna said, he had his mother’s phone number in his pocket. He was ready to go home, go back to school with his sister and, perhaps, finally get the help he needed.
“He finally got home, but it wasn’t the home he wanted,” Reyna said.
Ms Shannon agreed with the proposed sentence, telling the court she felt it was in the attacker’s best interests, and reiterated that “reasonable efforts” had been made to prevent this from happening to his future.
The boy waived his right to a trial. He can appeal the sentence, but it is unclear whether he will. His family declined to speak to reporters outside the courtroom.
After the hearing, Huerta could be heard sobbing from the hallway as she spoke privately to the 17-year-old boy’s family.
Huerta told the child’s mother that it wasn’t her fault, that it was kids’ fault these days, that it was society’s fault, and she said she thought they were a lot alike, two moms just trying to do the best they could.
“What your son did didn’t kill my son,” Huerta said. “The system did.”
Both children were lost, Ms. Huerta said, but one returned home years later with only memories of Moisés: laughing until she couldn’t breathe at a gas station while he struggled to put money into the wrong slot, or how he comforted her as she applied makeup or tended to her wheelchair-bound grandfather.
Still, Huerta told her mother, she doesn’t have “a single ounce of hatred” in her heart, just a request.
“Your son is always with me,” she said. “I pray that he will change his life.”
