Maximiliano Cisneros listens to the prosecution present closing arguments at the Carson City courthouse on Friday. Cisneros was found guilty today of second-degree murder.
A Carson City jury today found 23-year-old Maximilliano Cisneros guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting of Juan Carlos Alegria.
Cisneros was found not guilty of an attempted murder charge in the shooting of 23-year-old Fidel Fuentes.
Cisneros said he was visiting Katie Armstrong's apartment sometime around 11 p.m. on May 24, 2004, when someone began banging on the doors and windows trying to get inside.
During testimony on Friday, Cisneros said Armstrong looked scared and asked him to jump out the window of her 3-year-old daughter's bedroom. When Cisneros went in the back of the apartment, he heard someone trying to get in the window.
He said it sounded to him like there could be seven or eight people outside.
When Fuentes kicked in the door of the apartment, Cisneros said, Fuentes confronted him in the child's bedroom. Cisneros pulled out the gun and told Fuentes to leave, and Fuentes ran out of the apartment.
Cisneros said he assumed Fuentes was gone, but when Cisneros got outside, Fuentes was there taunting him.
"I was shocked to see him there. I figured if he was still there he probably had a gun," he said. "As soon as I saw Fidel reach for his back, you know, I had to react to that."
Cisneros said repeatedly he didn't mean to kill Alegria or shoot Fuentes. He called the shots a "warning."
"I don't know how many times I shot," he said.
"That was not my intention. I didn't want to shoot nobody. I was scared," he said. "I feel horrible."