An Odessa man will be spending the next 60 years in prison after an Ector County jury convicted him of murdering a 17-year-old boy over a drug deal.
An Ector County jury took a little over an hour to convict Desmond Tuggle, 23, Wednesday in the May 16, 2020 death of Osvaldo “Chevy” Renteria and another 3.5 hours to render their sentence.
Assistant Ector County District Attorneys Kortney Williams and Melissa Williams presented evidence throughout their two-day trial that Tuggle shot and killed Renteria moments after Renteria paid Destiny Barrera for a quarter ounce of marijuana with a fake $100 bill and ran away.
Renteria was shot once in the back and was found 25 feet from where the exchange took place at the Jackson Square Apartments. He died at the hospital several hours later after losing his entire body’s volume of blood while doctors tried to save him.
Tuggle confessed to Odessa Police Sgt. Justin Caid the next morning and again on the stand Tuesday. However, he repeatedly said he simply reacted after Renteria “snatched” the marijuana from Barrera, his girlfriend. He insisted it was a “flight or fight” situation and he’d had no time to think.
During closing arguments Wednesday morning, Tuggle’s defense attorney, Johanna Curry, made several different arguments. She suggested jurors shouldn’t consider Tuggle’s confession because he initially told Caid that he wasn’t there that night.
“He’s already been shown to be a liar…why should we take that as gospel?” Curry said.
She pointed out police did not conduct any gunshot residue tests on either Barrera or Tuggle, did not conduct any ballistics testing on the .357 Magnum Tuggle said he used and they didn’t do any fingerprint comparisons. She also said they didn’t check to see who the gun was registered to.
“We have no physical evidence beyond the confession,” Curry said. “A confession without more proof is a not guilty.”
An Ector County grand jury declined to indict Barrera and she testified against Tuggle Tuesday. She refuted Tuggle’s contention that Renteria had “snatched” the marijuana from her hand and thereby was shot after “robbing” them.
Curry said she’d leave it up to them, but she personally couldn’t differentiate between the two people in Tuggle’s Dodge Nitro on the video surveillance and suggested Barrera could be the guilty party.
“Did she want to get rid of my client? How do we know she didn’t fire that gun and my client confessed because he was trying to save her?” Curry asked.
She then said if Tuggle did fire the gun that night, that doesn’t mean he intended to kill Renteria.
“He didn’t have to aim. You just straighten your arm out and shoot. That’s not aiming,” Curry said. “He was just reacting to what had just happened, it wasn’t intentionally and it wasn’t knowingly.”
Anticipating some of Curry’s arguments, Melissa Williams had earlier argued during her closing argument that the jury can determine Tuggle acted knowingly and intentionally because he knew he was going to a drug deal, he armed himself, he signaled Renteria to the car by flashing his headlights, he grabbed, aimed and fired the gun and he fled the scene. In addition, the evidence showed he removed the spent shell casing from the revolver, bleached the gun, hid it and lied to the police.
In order to convict Tuggle of murder, the jury had to find that Tuggle acted “knowingly and intentionally.”
During her rebuttal closing argument, Kortney Williams said she was confused by Curry’s argument.
“Somebody else shot him, but Desmond shot him?” she asked.
She reiterated her co-counsel’s arguments, saying the gun wasn’t magnetized to Tuggle’s hand and it didn’t raise and fire on its own.
“Every piece of evidence points to one story and one conclusion,” Kortney Williams said.
She said Tuggle’s own words show why he should be convicted of murder and she then played a snippet of Tuggle’s police confession.
“I pulled the trigger. I raised that gun. It’s that simple.”
During the punishment phase of the trial Curry pleaded for mercy for her client, saying no one knows how they would have reacted under similar circumstances. She noted her client has never been arrested before and is determined to rehabilitate himself.
Tuggle told jurors he’s been reading a lot in jail and studying the law. While in prison he intends to take as many classes as he can and to learn a trade.
“I messed up. I took the life of someone who…I don’t think he had a clue of what he was doing,” Tuggle said.
Renteria’s mother, Jessica Castenada, described her son as a nonjudgmental person who took it upon himself to become the man of the house at an early age, going to work for her in a car detailing business at the age of 9.
Her life now is a “living hell,” she said, sobbing.
“He was a great child. He was one of the best. I’ve got three and he was the first best and he got ripped away from me over nothing,” Castenada said.
The prosecutors also put two law enforcement officers on the stand during the punishment phase. Caid, the lead detective on the case, said Tuggle was more concerned about his well-being and that of Barrera’s than about the implication of his actions.
The prosecutors then showed jurors another video, this one of Tuggle speaking with Cain after his formal interview. In it, Tuggle said, “I didn’t pull up there to give him no free weed.”
Odessa Police Cpl. Thor Prosise described Tuggle and Barrera as being “almost nonchalant” while he drove them to jail following their confessions. A camera captured the couple kissing a few times and nuzzling in the backseat of the patrol car. They also discussed the future of their furniture and Tuggle asked Prosise if he’ll be able to write Barrera from prison.
Toward the end of the video, Tuggle begins to hum and sing along with Blind Melon’s “No Rain,” which was playing on the radio.
Tuggle later explained that behavior by saying, “I was trying to keep myself together. I took someone’s life and I don’t want to go to prison for the rest of my life.”
The prosecutors urged the jurors to give Tuggle a life sentence, but said if they opted to give a lesser sentence argued it should be 50-60 years. They insisted Tuggle still hasn’t accepted responsibility for his actions, instead blaming the victim repeatedly. Nor has he shown remorse, they said.
“He’s singing along with the radio like he’s going to the grocery store,” Melissa Williams said.
Kortney Williams said that just because Tuggle has never been arrested before doesn’t mean he’s not engaged in criminal activity before, reminding them he told them he sold marijuana in high school, was shot at during a drug deal and has been involved in fights in the jail.
Justice is about a 17-year-old boy whose life was cut short, Kortney Williams said before playing a police body cam video showing officers begging Renteria to stay awake and to keep breathing as his 10-year-old brother cried for him not to be scared.
“If he will do that for $100, what will he do for $200?” Kortney Williams asked.
