Gang member gets life in prison after he ‘senselessly murdered’ Bradenton 24-year-old
A Bradenton man and previously documented member of the street gang Sur 13 will spend the rest of his life in prison for the 2019 fatal shooting of 24-year-old Joshua Gonzelez.
Catalino Reyes — who has a face tattoo of 187, the penal code for murder in California — was found guilty in November of first-degree felony murder for killing Gonzelez.
“Although the life sentence in this case was mandatory, it is also the appropriate sentence as this defendant was only out of prison a short time when he entered the victim’s home, committed an armed robbery, and senselessly murdered the victim,” Assistant State Attorney Rebecca Freel said. “A young teenage girl and an infant were luckily not harmed during this dangerous and deadly crime.”
Reyes, 27, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday afternoon by Circuit Judge Lon Arend. Florida abolished it’s parole system in 1983, so a life sentence does not come with any possibility of being released.
At the time of the murder, it had been about seven months since Reyes was released from a Florida prison for a 2013 conviction for possession of ammunition by a person less than 24 years old previously found delinquent.
Gonzelez was found dead on Feb. 11, 2019, when Bradenton police were called to his home in the 2200 block of Seventh Avenue East in the Manatee Mobile Home Park.
Reyes and two other men, wearing masks and dressed in black, broke into the victim’s home. There was an exchange of gunfire in which Reyes was shot in the face, that left a trail of his blood when he ran from the scene.
As police began to investigate the bloody scene in the mobile home, Reyes was dropped off at Blake Medical Center to be treated for his injuries.
Bradenton Police never identified the other two suspects involved.
This story was originally published January 27, 2022 at 3:37 PM.
