ALBANY, Ore. (AP) — Three men have been found guilty of murder in the killing of a roommate during a drunken evening in a rural Linn County apartment last year.
Prosecutors described the victim as a 38-year-old agricultural worker who had been forced to fight during political upheavals in El Salvador in the 1990s and was granted political asylum in the United States.
The Albany Democrat-Herald reports (http://bit.ly/KaxnVk) that witnesses estimated 120 beers were consumed the night Jose Felipe Hernandez-Leiva was beaten to death. His body was found three weeks later in a sleeping bag in grass and brush along Interstate 5.
The verdict came Tuesday. Sentencing is Thursday. Facing mandatory life sentences are 25-year-old Edgar Hernandez-Mendoza, 38-year-old Abiu Antonio Padilla and 30-year-old Jose Juarez-Alvarez.
