Victim’s family amass for sentencing hearing

The sprawling group of Garcia’s family and friends delivered a message to the judge, to the community and to the angry young man who shot and killed him. Garcia was loved.

Adam Garcia was loved.

That was abundantly clear. Emotions rolled like waves through a courtroom Friday afternoon as many of those who loved Garcia crowded into a courtroom to see justice served to the man who took him away.

Many wore blue T-shirts bearing his image. Many wrote heartbreaking letters or spoke in court. Some brought photographs of him in his younger years.

Just about everyone shed tears.

The sprawling group of Garcia’s family and friends delivered a message to the judge, to the community and to the angry young man who shot and killed him. Garcia was loved.

Christopher Malaga, the man who shot his 21-year-old friend over a perceived slight, doesn’t deserve mercy, they said.

“I am living a nightmare a mother should never have to live,” Garcia’s mother, Bettie Sifuentes, said as she unflinchingly faced Malaga in court. “I am living life in an emotional prison. My granddaughter Sophia is living a life in prison because her daddy, my son, will never come home. She is afraid her mommy might not come home. She is 6 years old, and yet she lives in fear and sadness.”

Judge Vickie Churchill excoriated Malaga for his crime and lack of remorse. She complied with recommendation from the prosecution and the demands of the family members; she sentenced Malaga to 443 months in prison, or nearly 37 years, which is the maximum under the standard sentencing range.

In March, a jury convicted Malaga, 25, of first-degree murder and second-degree assault at a trial in Island County Superior Court; the jury found that there were firearms enhancements to each charge, which added mandatory time to the sentence.

Malaga shot Garcia in the face and pointed a gun at another man in a quiet Oak Harbor neighborhood early in the morning of Oct. 18, 2014.

Garcia, Malaga, another young man and a teenager met to conduct a small-time drug deal, but the investigation revealed that the motive for the murder had nothing to do with drugs.

Garcia had given Malaga a place to stay for three months but they had a falling out when Garcia asked him to leave on the night before the murder. Garcia apologized to Malaga several times but Malaga wasn’t pacified.

He killed his friend over a “minuscule disagreement,” Prosecutor Greg Banks said.

“He brought a gun to an argument.”

Banks said that Malaga shows no remorse and even posed for a photo in the courtroom with his attorneys in front of Garcia’s family.

Banks described Garcia’s family as inspirational and said they showed nothing but solidarity and patience in the face of tragedy and a painful trial.

“It makes it particularly difficult for this community to lose someone like Adam,” he said.

Alyssa Gooch spoke about how she met Garcia in fifth grade and he became like a brother to her. She, like many others, focused on the small kindnesses that seemed to define the young man’s life.

“There were those times that I just wanted to hide out from everything that was happening around and not deal with any burdens that were surrounding me, but he would Just give me the tightest of hugs and laugh his contagious laugh and pull me right out of my slump,” she said. “He was truly one of the best friends a girl could have asked for. He made every moment exciting and worthwhile.”

Others wrote about how Garcia stood up for the weak and was always ready to help others at a moment’s notice. He was truly close with his mother. He was a protector and a peacemaker.

“Not a day goes by that I do not think of or talk about Adam,” his grandmother, Christina Baker, said, “and it’s always with a smile and then a million tears when I realize I will never get to hold or hug or argue with him ever again. I will never see that big smile of his and his big hug telling me ‘I love you grandma, it’s going to be OK.’ ”

Many of the speakers and those who wrote letters to the judge focused on Garcia’s special relationship with his daughter, Sophia, and how she will grow up without a father. She still calls out for “daddy” when she gets a scratch and has nightmares about his killer.

Sophia’s mother wrote down and read the little girl’s words for the court.

“On my birthday I didn’t get balloons from my daddy this year,” she said. “Instead, I sent daddy a message tied to balloons, telling him that I loved him and missed him. Do you think the balloons made it all the way to heaven? I hope so.”

 

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