DeLeon convicted of lesser murder charge

Marcos DeLeon

AURORA | A man who police say killed his girlfriend last spring was convicted of second-degree murder Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said. 

The jury returned the guilty verdict against Marcos Antonio DeLeon, 23, around 4:45 p.m. Friday, according to Krista Flannigan, a spokeswoman for the Adams County district attorney’s office. 

DeLeon was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the April 12, 2010, slaying of 19-year-old Dakota Fresh at the couple’s apartment near East Montview Boulevard Fulton Street. 

Had the jury convicted DeLeon of first-degree murder, he would have faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Instead, DeLeon will likely face a prison term of up to 48 years at his sentencing hearing next month. 

During opening statements last week, DeLeon’s lawyer, public defender Christian Earle, said Deleon did not mean to kill Fresh that night and may not have been the person who pulled the trigger. Fresh grabbed a gun from the coffee table that night and held it to her head, threatening suicide, Earle said. And when DeLeon reached for the pistol, it went off.

Earle also said prosecutors and police really didn’t know exactly what happened in the moments before Fresh’s slaying.

But prosecutors said DeLeon’s actions in the minutes after the shooting — including fleeing the apartment, hiding out in a hotel and later at a friend’s house  — showed he is guilty.

“The defendant did not call 911, and did nothing to help Dakota Fresh,” prosecutor Alex Dorotik said.

Earle said DeLeon’s actions after Fresh’s shooting, which included locking the apartment’s dead bolt when he left, were “just plain stupid.”

But, he said, DeLeon was scared and wasn’t thinking clearly.

In addition to the murder charge, prosecutors also charged DeLeon after his arrest with three felony drug counts, including conspiracy to distribute marijuana and possession of more than 8 ounces of marijuana. He is set to go on trial on those charges later this month.