Inset: Christopher McDonnell (Henderson Police Department via KLAS). Background: The location of a deadly shooting in Henderson, Nevada (KLAS).
A Texan man with a distinctive skull face tattoo received a 100-year prison sentence for going on an 11-hour shooting rampage aimed at drivers on highways and roads across two states. This violent spree resulted in the death of a man and injuries to several others.
Christopher McDonnell, aged 32, was given his sentence for the killing of 22-year-old Kevin Mendiola Jr. McDonnell had previously pleaded guilty but mentally ill in October to various charges including first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder, and firing a gun at a vehicle with people inside.
McDonnell, along with his brother and his brother’s former wife, were charged in connection with the shooting spree that took place on Thanksgiving Day in 2020, starting in Nevada and concluding in Arizona where they were caught after the vehicle they were traveling in crashed.
The family spoke out about the pain.
“The hurt, the pain, the guilt and the stress that these three individuals put on my family,” said Mendiola’s brother, also wounded in the attack. “Our lives will never be the same after this.”
In a written statement, McConnell took responsibility, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“I take full responsibility for my own wrongdoings, and I appreciate the court’s for administering justice,” McDonnell said, local CBS affiliate KLAS reported.
His public defender, Ryan Bashor, said Friday his client was a “troubled, troubled person.” He asked the court to sentence him to between 21 and 52 years in prison.
But prosecutors pushed for the maximum.
“The heinous and random nature of these crimes threatened many unsuspecting citizens in our community,” said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson in the press release announcing the indictment. “This act of mass violence left both physical and emotional scars on the victims and their families, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”
Prosecutors said McConnell’s brother’s then-wife was the driver as the two brothers fired indiscriminately out of the vehicle’s windows at cars and into a 7-Eleven in Henderson, Nevada, on Nov. 26, 2020, killing Mendiola in a vehicle.
A fourth victim was at the store with his daughter and 1-year-old grandchild.
He died shielding bullets from his girlfriend, Jayde Libby, who said it was “the most heroic thing one could ever do” at Friday’s sentencing.
“He saved me, and I’ll never know why,” she added.
“I call him Skeletor,” the man testified, the Review-Journal’s Briana Erickson reported.
The victim’s daughter was in a car in the parking lot with her own young daughter in the backseat.
She recalled the terror.
“I pleaded for my life,” she testified. “I said, ‘Please don’t shoot. I don’t have any money. You can take my car. You can take anything you want. Please don’t shoot.”
She said the gunman pointed the gun at her daughter in the backseat as the little girl screamed.
“He comes to my window and tells me something along the lines of I am very lucky,” she said, adding that the man turned his attention away from her and to another vehicle.
“I heard him say he was God and that there is an upcoming war coming,” she added.
After the 7-Eleven shooting, the defendants shot and wounded a female driver near Lake Las Vegas and drove to Parker, Arizona, where they were arrested after the Toyota Camry they were in crashed and rolled and after a shootout with authorities that wounded McConnell’s brother. Authorities said more than a dozen people reported being targeted in the spree.
McDonnell’s brother awaits trial, while his ex-wife is set to be sentenced in June.
