Plea agreement reached in December 2015 Middletown murder
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Clearlake Park man has reached a plea agreement with the District Attorney’s Office for the December 2015 murder of a Middletown man and the nonfatal shooting of the man’s fiancée.
District Attorney Don Anderson said Javier Martinez Cachu, 22, has pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of 25-year-old Luis Pimentel-Arroyo, the attempted murder of Pimentel-Arroyo’s fiancée, Eva Prado, and special allegations of being armed with a shotgun on the night of Dec. 30, 2015.
Anderson said the case involved drugs and insurance money.
Prado and Pimentel-Arroyo lost their Middletown home in the September 2015 Valley fire. Anderson said Martinez Cachu was able to get $40,000 in insurance money from Prado, which he then used to buy marijuana to sell.
However, Anderson said the marijuana was stolen, and Martinez Cachu wasn’t able to pay back Prado.
While Prado and Pimentel-Arroyo were in a vehicle on Butts Canyon Road in Middletown on the night of Dec. 30, Martinez Cachu shot and killed Pimentel-Arroyo. Prado was hit and injured by buckshot from the shotgun blast, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Following the shooting, Martinez Cachu fled the scene in another vehicle before he turned himself in at the Clearlake Police Department about two hours later.
Martinez Cachu was arrested early on the morning of Dec. 31, according to case records. He has remained in custody ever since.
When Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff originally charged Martinez Cachu in the case, he included two special allegations, murder for financial gain and murder by lying wait, which he said at the time made Martinez Cachu eligible for the death penalty or life without parole.
Under the plea agreement, Anderson said Martinez Cachu will serve 90 years to life in state prison.
Anderson said that, based on the law, someone who is under the age of 25 at the time of the crime – even one as serious as a homicide – may be eligible for parole. Martinez Cachu was 20 at the time of the murder.
Martinez Cachu is scheduled to be sentenced on April 3.
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