Mesa man sentenced to 23 years in fatal motel shooting

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge handed down a sentence of 23 years in prison to a Mesa man who pled guilty to a fatal motel shooting in 2021.

Initially charged and indicted on first-degree murder, Stevie Jones, 28, pled guilty to second-degree murder on June 9, almost a year after Michael Gonzalez was shot to death in the parking lot of the Frontier Motel in Mesa near Stapley Drive and Main Street.

Maricopa Superior Court Judge Pamela Gates sentenced the 29-year-old Jones to 23 years in prison on July 28.

The shooting in the parking lot

Officers found the body of 28-year-old Michael Gonzalez with seven gunshot wounds at the motel parking lot near.

The motel video surveillance showed a man chasing Gonzalez through the parking lot, court records claimed.

Gonzalez collapsed, and the man, later identified as Jones, stood over Gonzalez and fired several shots at him, the video showed, according to court records.

Police arrested Jones on suspicion of the fatal shooting after an investigation connecting the video footage and testimony by Jones's girlfriend.

According to the court records, Jones’ girlfriend told police that he had gone to the store earlier that night and came back upset with someone who looked like Gonzalez.

Jones said that Gonzalez had threatened him at the local Food City grocery store, court records claimed.

Residents told police that Gonzalez had been knocking on doors at the motel, looking for his child, records revealed.

Jones’s girlfriend said that Gonzalez started scratching on their motel window that faced a dirt alley behind the hotel.

Jones, with a gun in his hand, opened the curtains and shot at Gonzalez through the glass, according to police reports.

Jones’s girlfriend told police the man ran, and Jones opened the window and chased after him.

Gonzalez had been shot at the window and was shot again as Jones chased him, according to court records.

Jones’s girlfriend said that after hearing four or five shots, Jones came back through the window and told her, “I hit him,” and “ I had to make sure he didn’t come back,” court records showed.

'He loved his boys'

According to Maricopa County Probation Officer Martha Romero’s sentencing report, second-degree murder would be the fifth felony conviction for Jones. She remarked in the report that Gonzalez was a stranger to Jones, and the death of Gonzalez had caused emotional trauma to his family. She recommended the maximum sentence.

At the sentencing on July 22, letters from Gonzalez’s family members were read out in court, explaining that they could not be there in person because of the emotional toll.

Gonzalez’s mother, Janine Mendez, wrote about the nine months of depression and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder she had undergone since the death of her son.

She explained that Gonzalez had been dealing with the recent death of his wife at the time of his murder and had two boys, 10 and 15.

"He loved his boys more than life itself,” Mendez wrote in her letter. “He had so many hopes and dreams to become better, make a better future for himself and his voice was all taken away through a selfish cowardly, evil act of violence.”

She asked the court to give Jones the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. "Please consider all the pain and loss this murderer has caused and sentence him the maximum," she wrote.

Attorney James Leonards, Jones’ lawyer, reminded the court that Jones's plea to second-degree murder took into account that Jones did not start this altercation and that the murder was not premeditated.

“I would also note, a resident at the hotel told Mesa Police Department that he heard Stevie after the shooting say, quote, ‘I did not want to kill him,’” he said.

Jones told the court that he was sorry for what he did and that he let down his father, girlfriend and recently-born daughter.

“I don't know if they can find it in some way in their hearts, I know it’s hard, to forgive,” Jones said in court.

Judge Gates commented that Jones’ prior felonies, violent acts and the impact on Gonzalez’s family were immense when considering his sentence.

“Sentencing is like the scales of justice, the plates on both sides,” she said, “And in a second-degree murder conviction the range is between 10 and 25 years. The presumptive sentence when the scales balance is 16 years.”

But in this case, she found that the weight of the harm done to Gonzalez’s Family “weighed heavily on the side of aggravation.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Stevie Jones sentenced to 23 years in prison for fatal motel shooting