26 Oct Jury sentences Rogelio Martinez to death in 2023 killing of San Benito police Lt. Milton Resendez

A Cameron County jury sentenced Rogelio Martinez, 21, to death Monday morning in the 2023 shooting death of San Benito police Lt. Milton Resendez, according to The Brownsville Herald.

Jurors took close to nine hours, spread across three days, to decide punishment. The sentencing phase began Oct. 19, and the same jury had found Martinez guilty of capital murder Oct. 8 after about three hours of deliberations. In the punishment phase, the defense brought in experts and Martinez’s relatives to try to convince jurors to choose life without the possibility of parole. Court and Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show Martinez is now the youngest person on the state’s death row.

Resendez was shot Oct. 17, 2023, in San Benito during an hourslong chase. It started on South Padre Island, where a Cameron County park ranger tried to pull over a vehicle carrying Martinez and Rodrigo Axel Espinosa Valdez. The two drove to Brownsville, then to San Benito, the scene of the shooting, and back to Brownsville, where the vehicle was disabled by the Texas Department of Public Safety and both were taken into custody. Espinosa Valdez, 26, later pleaded guilty to murder, a lesser charge than capital murder.

Resendez’s widow, Melissa Resendez, gave a victim impact statement in court. She told Martinez that she had never pictured herself in a courtroom talking about her husband as someone who was gone, and that he had taken from her their conversations, their memories and the chance to grow old together. Her husband, she said, should have been able to complete his shift and return home, and no sentence can bring him back.

Police Chief Mario Perea of San Benito addressed the judge and Martinez, describing Resendez as a hero whose legacy will endure, KRGV reported. Perea said afterward that the loss is a wound that will never fully heal, but that the sentence brings some closure after three years.