
Insets, left to right: Fernando Amaya and Christopher Portillo Luna (Houston Police Department). Background: Apartment the two allegedly shot up, killing one man (KTRK).
A Texas teen believed his girlfriend was cheating on him, so he and a friend allegedly went to the apartment of his perceived romantic rival and fired a hail of bullets.
But they killed the wrong man and injured another person who was not their intended target, police say.
Fernando Amaya and Christopher Portillo Luna, both 17, stand accused of murder and other charges in the death of 41-year-old Marcos Cotto Torres, Houston police said in a press release.
Cops responded shortly before 1 a.m. on March 18 to an apartment complex in west Houston for a report of a person down. When they arrived they found two men had been shot. Paramedics discovered Cotto Torres unresponsive and lying in an upstairs bedroom suffering from gunshot wounds to the back of the head and other parts of his body; they pronounced him dead. There was a second victim who was suffering from a gunshot wound to his buttocks. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.
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According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, another occupant of the apartment said his younger sister, a minor, was dating Amaya. Police said the girlfriend was cheating on him with another man who lived in the apartment but he escaped uninjured. The girlfriend later told detectives that Amaya told her that he was going to shoot up the apartment and then kill himself, the affidavit said.
Amaya followed through on the threat of shooting up the apartment, cops allege. After the shooting, surveillance video showed the suspects flee in a white SUV that belonged to one of their family members, cops said. Investigators found 84 spent shell casings from an AK-style rifle, per cops. Images of the scene filmed by local ABC affiliate KTRK showed the windows boarded up and numerous bullet holes in the concrete walls.
Cops arrested Amaya hours after the shooting and took Portillo Luna into custody on Thursday. Both remain bars on bonds of over $1 million. Their next court date is scheduled for April 29.
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