A man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was convicted Monday for the murder of 51-year-old Victor Martinez during a 2021 armed robbery at a Greeley gas station.
Later Monday afternoon, Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow sentenced Kyle Moore, 31, to the only sentence available for first-degree murder in Colorado: life without parole.
Kopcow tacked on another 64 years to be served consecutively for a pair of aggravated assault charges, as well as just under 30 years to be served concurrently for the two counts of aggravated robbery, aggravated motor vehicle theft, possession of a weapon by a previous offender and misdemeanor assault.
“You committed the ultimate crime of taking another person’s life. Somebody who did nothing to you,” Kopcow said before handing down the sentence. “So now you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison wondering why you made that decision.”
Moore was the second person convicted in the murder. Trent O’Neil — who carried out the killing with Moore — pleaded guilty on April 11, 2023, to second-degree murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, aggravated motor vehicle theft and misdemeanor assault. The same day, Kopcow sentenced him to 55 years for his role in the murder.
Both cases date back to about 10 p.m. Dec. 14, 2021, when Greeley police responded to a report of an armed man trying to steal a vehicle at the Cosmic Market, 2730 23rd Ave. Martinez — the store’s manager — was shot while trying to intervene. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died from the gunshot wound.
Footage shown at a preliminary hearing in August 2022 — and again at last week’s trial — showed O’Neil and Moore arrive at the gas station in what police later learned to be a stolen vehicle. After going inside the store, O’Neil spoke briefly with Moore before attempting to steal another vehicle in the lot.
O’Neil pulled a gun on the vehicle’s owner, and when Martinez tried to intervene, Moore got out of the vehicle he was driving and shot Martinez in the back, prosecutors argued.
During Moore’s brief sentencing hearing Monday, Deputy District Attorney Timothy McCormack took some time to go through Moore’s criminal history in an attempt to paint a picture of the kind of life he was leading, and all the chances he had to turn his life around before that December night.
“You were afforded opportunities as a juvenile, as an adult, to get your life back on track,” Kopcow said. “But you made the decision, maybe because you didn’t have a clear mind because of the poison you put in your brain, to continue to hurt people.”
Moore, nor anyone from his defense team, chose to speak during the sentencing. Moore still has three outstanding cases in Weld District Court: one for motor vehicle theft and two for eluding. Kopcow set all three for arraignment July 1.
McCormack and Chief Deputy District Attorney Anthony Perea prosecuted the case.
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