District Attorney Micheal Murray reported that on Tuesday, November 5, 2013, a Brown County jury convicted Pedro Rocha, Jr., 22, of Capital Murder of Ronald Philen of Brownwood, Texas. Rocha was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division.
District Attorney Murray and First Assistant District Attorney Sam C. Moss presented evidence during the seven day trial that on December 11, 2009, Rocha, Efrain Castillo, Alex Lucky Gil, Jr., and Matthew Navarro broke into Randall and Ronald Philen’s home in Brownwood with the intent to steal approximately 50 pounds of marijuana. Wearing masks and carrying loaded guns, Castillo and Gil held Randall Philen hostage at gunpoint in the kitchen while Rocha and Navarro attacked Ronald Philen in his bedroom and searched for drugs. Gil and Castillo testified at the trial that Rocha came into the kitchen at one point to interrogate Randall and they heard five gunshots coming from the bedroom. When they went into the bedroom, Gil and Castillo testified that Ronald Philen was on the floor in a pool of blood and Navarro told them that he was sorry but he “had to do it.” The four men then fled the scene.
Randall Philen, the brother of the deceased, was originally tried and convicted of the murder in this case in 2011. Within two months of his conviction, the District Attorney’s Office received new information from a confidential source that Randall Philen had been wrongfully convicted and that the actual perpetrators were still at large. The District Attorney’s Office filed a Motion for New Trial in Philen’s case and, upon further investigation, eventually dismissed all charges against Philen, who was released from prison.At Rocha’s trial, defense attorney Todd Steele relied on the conviction of Randall Philen in an attempt to create a reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds. However, Murray and Moss argued that the evidence against Rocha was “overwhelming and indisputable.” Gil and Castillo each had confessed in the case and gave corroborating testimony at trial about the murder, each implicating Rocha. Additionally, the State presented evidence that both Gil’s and Rocha’s fingerprints were on an interior panel of the door to Ronald Philen’s bedroom. The panel had been kicked out of the door frame to gain entry to the bedroom, and officers testified that the locations of the fingerprints meant they could only have been placed there after the door was removed from the frame.
The jurors deliberated for less than an hour before returning their verdict of guilty of the offense of Capital Murder. Because the State elected not to pursue the death penalty, punishment was assessed automatically at life in prison without parole.
