Broward County man turned down a plea deal for the chance at trial. He lost.

WEST PALM BEACH — A Broward County man who turned down a plea deal in order to fight for his innocence at trial has lost, earning himself an automatic life sentence in prison for murder.

Jurors convicted Claudio Valdiviezo Samayoa, 29, of first-degree murder Thursday for the shooting death of 23-year-old Jamal Drummond. Police found the Riviera Beach man with a gunshot wound to the head in the parking lot of a West Palm Beach Holiday Inn on Oct. 15, 2021.

Police identified Samayoa as the suspected gunman a month after the shooting with the help of three witnesses, video and audio recordings from the hotel and the testimony of an Uber driver who took him there.

'She was gone': Prison inmates write letters to judge describing Boca woman's near-death experience

The driver, Enzo Ramirez, told investigators Samayoa paid him $100 to drop him off at the West Palm Beach hotel and wait for him at the gas station across the street. He said he waited about 15 minutes before Samayoa returned to the car, visibly upset.

He said Samayoa cried while he spoke on the phone to someone. Ramirez, who speaks little to no English, told police he didn't understand the conversation and drove Samayoa back to his home in Hollywood.

Two people smoking cigarettes in the hotel parking lot off 45th Street with Drummond minutes before the shooting said Samayoa approached them and asked whether they had seen a young girl, whose picture he showed on his phone.

They hadn't. One witness said Samayoa began to peek into a nearby car, and Drummond chastised him for it. Samayoa walked into the hotel and was recorded on surveillance-camera footage wandering around and calling someone on his phone before he left.

According to his arrest report, shots rang out moments later.

More: Man sentenced to federal prison for cyberstalking father of Parkland shooting victim

This week's jury was the second to weigh Samayoa's culpability. The first could not agree on whether he killed Drummond, delaying his ultimate conviction for another four months.

On the eve of his second trial, Assistant State Attorney Courtney Behar offered Samayoa a deal: Plead guilty to manslaughter and spend 15 years in prison, a fraction of the lifelong penalty he risked if jurors convicted him of first-degree murder. He declined.

"I'm going to trial, ma'am," he told Circuit Judge Daliah Weiss on Oct. 13.

Even if he changed his mind in the following days, Weiss warned him that she wouldn't accept another deal. Assistant Public Defender Andrew Benson predicted in court that the second trial would be similar to the first, with the addition of one state witness and recorded jailhouse calls.

In two calls, which were not played during trial after a ruling by Senior Judge Barry Cohen, an unnamed female caller admonished Samayoa.

"It's weird that every time somebody talks to me, you keep shooting them," she said in one, the calls transcribed in court filings. In another: "You kill somebody every time I leave you."

Drummond would have turned 26 in November.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: After mistrial, jury convicts man of murder for West Palm shooting