A Lakewood man could face up to 95 years in prison for fatally shooting three co-workers whose bodies were found at a tree nursery in Kent in March 2011.
A King County jury last week convicted Alberto Avila-Cardenas, 40, of three counts of first-degree murder for killing Jesus Bejar-Avila, 25, Yazmani Quezada-Ortiz, 26, and Cristian Alberto Rangel, 19.
A sentencing date has not been scheduled, but Avila-Cardenas faces a standard sentence range of 75 to 95 years, prosecutors say.
The victims were last seen alive on Dec. 12, 2010, when they left their jobs at Seattle’s Lake Union Wholesale Florist and got into Quezada-Ortiz’s vehicle for the drive home, prosecutors said in charging documents.
Their partially buried bodies were discovered by an employee of Rainier Nursery near Kent in March 2011.
The three men had been bound and shot in the head execution-style, police and prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Avila-Cardenas kidnapped the floral warehouse workers and took them to a remote section of the expansive Kent nursery and killed them. Avila-Cardenas had worked with the victims at Lake Union Wholesale Florist until he quit in May 2010, authorities said.
Prosecutors said the shootings were motivated by Avila-Cardenas’ belief that a cousin of Quezada-Ortiz had shot Avila-Cardenas in the foot in a shooting that left two other men dead, the charges said.
Avila-Cardenas was described by Lakewood police as a Mexican national who has been living here illegally.
A co-defendant, Jose Alfredo Velez-Fombona, 29, pleaded guilty last month to a charge of second-degree murder for helping Avila-Cardenas, prosecutors said.
Avila-Cardenas faces a 10- to 18-year-sentence for his role in the killings at his sentencing Aug. 28 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Court documents say cellphone records showed that Avila-Cardenas and Velez-Fombona were in the area where the three other men worked and where they were killed. In addition, prosecutors said, blood from one of the victims was found on a 9 mm handgun found at Avila-Cardenas’ home.
