ATASCOSA COUNTY, Texas – A man will serve five decades in prison for killing another man at a cookout several years ago.
According to a news release from the 81st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Charles Morgan was sentenced to 50 years in prison on June 23 after pleading guilty in April to Guadalupe Anguiano III’s murder.
On September 6, 2021, the defendant, his mother, Anguiano, and others living on the same property were cooking together when “without warning and with no apparent motive,” Morgan shot the victim in the chest at close range. He fled the scene with his mother and attempted to travel to Louisiana.
According to prosecutors, Morgan was released from prison just one day before the shooting.
Witnesses reportedly identified Morgan as the suspect. The Texas Department of Public Safety later arrested him and his mother.
According to the district attorney’s office, Morgan attempted to postpone trial by “feigning mental illness.” Morgan and other residents of a mental health facility allegedly used parts from an automatic blood pressure machine to make weapons, resulting in a “riot situation.” Prosecutors claim that the defendant “calculated violent attacks on other residents to the point where one requires continued neurological monitoring.”
Morgan’s mother was sentenced to eight years in prison for her role in fleeing.
The defendant’s sister allegedly “testified and described Guadalupe, as most everyone did, as a sweet, kind man.”
