- Christopher Rodríguez receives life in prison for a gunshot murder.
- Rodríguez shot two drug sellers to steal marijuana and money.
- Faith Deleón, Rodríguez’s accomplice, is detained awaiting her sentence.
Christopher Rodríguez received his life sentence for the murder of another young man during a drug transaction. The Hispanic was only 16 years old when he committed the crime in Houston, Texas, but the judge decided to take his case as an adult, since the boy acted with premeditation and calculation in his attack by shooting two young men.
The young Christopher Rodríguez, now 18 years old, continues to be detained in the prison of the Harris County, in Houston, waiting to be transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ, for its acronym in English), where you must live and only within 40 years can you ask to leave for good behavior.
Christopher Rodríguez receives life in prison for murder
The girl Faith Deleón, now 20, is also in jail for having been an accomplice of Christopher Rodríguez in the shooting attack of two young men in the parking lot of the Studio Movie Grill, located at 8580 Highway 6th, northwest of the area. Greater Houston and in the upper-middle-class suburb of Copperfield. The girl is already awaiting her sentence.
Christopher Rodríguez was accused of capital murder and according to the Texas State Penal Code, is the only crime punishable by the death penalty. However, as the boy committed his crime while still a minor, it saved him from facing death by lethal injection to pay for the brutal attack.
“He planned the crime in cold blood to lie, steal and kill”
Kim Ogg, la Harris County District Attorney in Houston, Texas, issued a statement after the sentencing of Christopher Rodríguez was known, whom he defined as someone who “planned the crime in cold blood to lie, steal and kill … that is why the Prosecutor’s Office agreed that the rest of the his life in prison, “said the prosecutor.
On the night of Sunday, December 31, 2017, the young Faith Deleón, a student at North Shore High School, was at a party with other boys drinking alcohol and using drugs, when her friend Christopher Rodríguez proposed to get money and more drugs from a quick way.
The robbery of the two marijuana sellers
Christopher Rodríguez told Faith Deleón to organize a robbery of small-time marijuana dealers in the northwest of the city. The Copperfield area, where the events occurred, is a suburb in Houston that many families chose to raise their children due to the prestige of the public schools there.
Faith Deleón told Christopher Rodríguez that she knew two boys named Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons who sold drugs, mainly marijuana, to students at various high schools in the Copperfield area and that she had their phone numbers. Christopher Rodríguez chose them as his victims.
Faith Deleón quotes victims outside a movie theater
Based on Christopher Rodríguez’s instructions, the young Faith Deleón called Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons, who were allegedly partners, to sell her marijuana. The two small-time vendors agreed to square a price with the girl for marijuana, and the young woman met them outside the Studio Movie Grill.
Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons arrived at the Studio Movie Grill in a gray Toyota Camry car and parked in front of an empty store to one side of the movie theater. Then, in another car, Faith Deleón and Christopher Rodríguez arrived together, who approached the other boys in a friendly way.
Christopher Rodríguez was friendly with his victims
Christopher Rodríguez and Faith Deleón joked with Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons for a moment until the drug dealers told them to get in the back seat of the Toyota Camry to trade their marijuana for Rodríguez and Deleón’s money.
While Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons showed the stash of marijuana that they carried with them to give to the other two boys, Christopher Rodríguez surprised them by taking out a gun from among their clothes with which he threatened them. Faith Deleón took the drugs and money from her victims, while the other boy pointed the gun at them.
Drug dealers are shot dead
When Faith Deleón and Christopher Rodríguez got hold of the drugs and money from the drug dealers, they got out of the Toyota and started running towards their car. In his career Rodríguez noticed that Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons, both 18, were about to get out of the car to chase them and forcibly retrieve the marijuana and money.
Then Christopher Rodríguez turned and with the pistol in his hand he fired a round of bullets at his rivals, who were already getting out of the car. Daniel Gerding turned when he saw that the weapon was already pointed at him and was wounded on the spot by several shots from the back. Colyn Timmons kept running, but was shot in the face.
Shooting alerts Copperfield residents
Christopher Rodríguez and Faith Deleón followed to their truck and fled the scene with the marijuana and the money. The amount that was taken from Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons is not known for sure. The two culprits declared in the subsequent interrogations that they planned the robbery, because they wanted to buy clothes.
The brutal shooting alerted the residents of the place, in front of the Studio Movie Grill there is an apartment complex, who called the emergency number to report the incident. The first to arrive at the scene of the attack were the patrolmen of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO).
One victim is badly injured and another dies at the scene
However, when the HCSO officers arrived at the scene, they could no longer do anything for young Daniel Gerding and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Colyn Timmons was transferred to an emergency helicopter ambulance, to be treated due to the severity of his injuries. Timmons survived the attack, but lives with permanent sequelae from the shooting.
When Daniel Gerding’s death was confirmed, officers from the HCSO Homicide Division showed up at the Studio Movie Grill to conduct the first investigations. The first line of investigation related to the activities as drug dealers by Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons.
Faith Deleon’s phone records with victims
In the phone records of Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons, the agents of the Homicide Division of the HCSO saw all the conversation that the two marijuana sellers had through messages on social media with Faith Deleón and how the girl instructed them to meet her and with a friend outside the Studio Movie Grill.
After three months of investigations, the agents of the Homicide Division of the HCSO arrested the young Faith Deleón, then 17 years old, for having been the bait to take Daniel Gerding and Colyn Timmons to the movies, in which Christopher Rodríguez shot to steal their marijuana and money.
Christopher Rodríguez calculated the crime in detail
The young Faith Rodríguez, when the agents of the Homicide Division of the HCSO showed her the evidence of the phone calls, collapsed before the officers and between sobs ended up recounting all the details of the crime. The date for Faith Rodríguez’s sentencing was set for next Monday, October 4, 2021 in Houston, Texas.
Christopher Rodríguez calculated his crime in detail. After escaping from the crime scene, he ordered Faith Deleon to give him her phone and, along with his own, he broke them and dumped them in a wooded area along with the gun. Then he ordered the girl to change her clothes and get rid of what she was wearing, then he did the same.
mundohispanico.com