Inset: Christopher McDonnell (Henderson Police Department via KLAS). Background: The location of a deadly shooting in Henderson, Nevada (KLAS).
A troubled Texas man with a distinctive skull face tattoo was sentenced to 100 years in prison for an 11-hour shooting rampage targeting motorists on freeways and roads in two states that killed a man and wounded several others.
Christopher McDonnell, 32, learned his fate on Friday in the death of Kevin Mendiola Jr., 22. McDonnell pleaded guilty but mentally ill in October to charges of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder and discharging a firearm at or into an occupied vehicle.
He, his brother and his brother’s then-wife were indicted in connection with their 2020 Thanksgiving Day shooting spree that began in Nevada and ended in Arizona, where the defendants were apprehended when the car they were in rolled over.
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.
Another 7-Eleven victim later testified that the tattooed defendant shot at him as he walked out of the store. The bleeding victim — with a bullet puncturing his lung — ducked back into the store and told the clerk to dial 911 before the two fled for their lives out the back.
“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.
