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Walmart mass shooter pleads guilty in El Paso court, gets life sentence [1]

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Date: 2025-04-21

The grinding path to justice for the most lethal mass shooter to ever appear in a U.S. courtroom came to an end Monday when Patrick Crusius pleaded guilty to murdering 23 people and wounding 22 others in an anti-Hispanic assault on an El Paso Walmart in 2019.

He was sentenced by 409th District Judge Sam Medrano to life in prison without the possibility of parole for capital murder, and life in prison for each of 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The capital murder and aggravated assault sentences will be served concurrently, meaning at the same time.

Crusius – in an orange and white jail jumpsuit and shackled – said little during the hearing other than pleading guilty and providing brief answers to Medrano’s questions about whether his guilty plea was voluntary and that he understood his rights.

WATCH HERE: Walmart shooter plea, sentencing hearing

During the hearing, District Attorney James Montoya read the names of each of the 23 people killed in the attack, as well as the 22 wounded.

The hearing was conducted amid intense security, both inside and outside the county courthouse. People attending the hearing had to go through multiple security screenings before being allowed in the courtroom.

Montoya decided last month to no longer pursue the death penalty, leading to the guilty plea.

While state and federal prosecutions of cases are now complete, the survivors of the mass shooting, and the families who lost loved ones face lives that have been horrifically altered by a gunman vowing to stop “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

More than 100 family members of those slain by Crusius were in the makeshift courtroom set up in the county commissioners’ meeting space to accommodate a large crowd.

El Paso itself – selected by a man who lived 600 miles away to be the target of the deadliest act of anti-Hispanic violence in modern history – continues to heal. That path to healing has been complicated by political changes that have seen the gunman’s rhetoric of an “invasion” of Hispanic immigrants as part of a “great replacement” move from the darkest corners of the internet to mainstream political and media conversation.

The Aug. 3, 2019, attack on the Cielo Vista Walmart killed 23 people, the sixth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunmen in the five more lethal killings – in Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; Blacksburg, Virginia; Newtown, Connecticut; and Sutherland Springs, Texas – took their own lives or were killed by law enforcement.

Crusius, who was from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb, is the deadliest U.S. mass shooter to have to answer for his crimes in a courtroom.

Shortly before his attack, he posted what he called a “manifesto” on a website frequented by white nationalists that outlined his racist motivations.

One of his defense lawyers, Joe Spencer, said in an interview with El Paso Matters that Crusius – who has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder – was radicalized in online white nationalist forums in the months before the attack. Spencer said that his client told him that President Trump’s anti-immigrant statements were among the influences that led to the assault in El Paso.

In addition to his guilty pleas to state charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, he also pleaded guilty in 2023 to federal hate crimes and weapons charges and was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison. Federal prosecutors also opted not to seek the death penalty against Crusius.

The people killed in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso: Andre Anchondo, 23

Jordan Anchondo, 24

Arturo Benavides, 60

Leonardo Campos, 41

Angie Englisbee, 86

Maria Flores, 77

Raul Flores, 83

Guillermo “Memo” Garcia, 36

Jorge Calvillo García, 61

Adolfo Cerros Hernández, 68

Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, 66

David Johnson, 63

Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90

Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, 58

Maribel (Campos) Loya, 56

Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 46

Elsa Mendoza Marquez, 57

Gloria Irma Márquez, 61

Margie Reckard, 63

Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, 66

Javier Rodriguez, 15

Teresa Sanchez, 82

Juan Velazquez, 77

Crusius likely will head to the Texas state prison system to serve his sentences, spokespeople for the federal and state prison systems told El Paso Matters.

SEE MORE: Read all our coverage of the Walmart shooting, it’s ramifications and impact over the years

People whose lives were upended by Crusius will face him as they deliver victim impact statements starting Monday afternoon. More than 40 victims have asked to give statements, the District Attorney’s Office said. Medrano has said he will allow victims to speak as long as they want, and will continue the hearing throughout the week if necessary to allow everyone to speak.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2025/04/21/patrick-crusius-guilty-life-in-prison-sentence-aug-3-2019-walmart-mass-shooting/

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