The conviction and punishment of Rueben Rocha came nearly three years after Jordin Castillo was killed in her apartment while her daughter was inside.
GLENDALE, Ariz. — For Jordin Castillo’s family, the March 2026 sentencing of Rueben Rocha marked the end of a long court process that began when the 20-year-old mother was killed inside her apartment during a shooting prosecutors said unfolded while her young daughter was still in the home.
The case became a criminal prosecution with heavy evidence and serious charges, but it also remained a family story from beginning to end. Castillo’s relatives sat through the years between the June 2023 homicide and the February 2026 verdict, then watched a judge impose a life sentence the next month. In public statements, prosecutors emphasized the child Castillo left behind. Family members used simpler language, describing who Castillo was to them and what could not be restored. That difference in voice shaped how the case was understood outside court: one story about legal accountability, and another about a young mother whose absence keeps widening over time.
Castillo was inside a third-floor Glendale apartment with several other people, including her 2-year-old daughter, when prosecutors said Rocha arrived and made his way to the balcony. Authorities said he broke through the glass door and began shooting. In the apartment were friends, another man and woman, and the child the couple shared. According to the county attorney’s office, two adults moved the little girl and hid her during the attack. Castillo called 911 before the shooting and could be heard demanding that Rocha leave. She also said she had an order of protection. Those details made the case public almost immediately, because they turned the event from a bare police bulletin into a story with a mother’s voice, a child nearby and a clear sign that Castillo had already tried to put legal distance between herself and Rocha.
The violence inside the apartment reached beyond Castillo. Prosecutors said two of her friends were seriously injured and that Rocha fired 19 times. Early local coverage reported that investigators were looking at online conflict between the former couple as part of what may have led up to the shooting. Fox 10 also reported police said Rocha violated a protective order by entering through the balcony and that officers described a history of domestic violence in the relationship. Rocha later turned himself in, and the criminal case took on the slow rhythm familiar to families in homicide prosecutions: hearings, filings, waiting periods, trial preparation and, eventually, a jury verdict. During that time, the people closest to Castillo had to live with two timelines at once, one for the court and another for grief.
When the verdict came in February 2026, it answered the question of guilt but not the question of loss. ABC15 reported that family members were in the courtroom when jurors convicted Rocha of first-degree murder and eight additional charges. Castillo’s aunt, Mercedes Castillo, later said the verdict brought some relief and described Jordin as thoughtful and strong. That public remembrance mattered because it pushed back against the flattening effect criminal cases can have, where victims risk becoming only names in captions and charging documents. The family’s comments restored some of the personal outline: Jordin Castillo was a daughter, niece, mother and friend before she was a homicide victim. The conviction recognized the crime. It could not restore the life that existed before it.
At sentencing in March, the court imposed a natural life sentence for murder and another 52.5 years for the additional offenses, with 15 years to be served consecutively to the life term. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Castillo deserved safety and said her daughter deserved to grow up with a mother. That statement captured what sentencing often does in violent-crime cases: it fixes punishment in precise legal terms while also serving as the official system’s final moral summary. After sentencing, the courtroom question of what Rocha would face was settled. The more private questions for Castillo’s family and for the child who was hidden during the shooting remain outside anything a judgment can answer.
The scene that remains is both ordinary and devastating: an apartment, a child, friends gathered inside, a voice on the phone, and then gunfire. That mix of domestic detail and sudden violence is part of why the case continued to draw local attention through the verdict and sentence. It did not happen in a remote place or under unusual circumstances. It happened in a home where people were trying to be safe. For relatives who waited nearly three years, the life sentence closed one chapter. It did not close the fact that Castillo’s daughter will grow up with other people telling her who her mother was and what happened on that day in Glendale.
As of April 14, 2026, Rocha remains sentenced to life in prison and the family has the finality of a verdict and punishment. What comes next in public will likely be limited to any appeal activity, while the larger afterlife of the case belongs to those still carrying Castillo’s memory.
Author note: Last updated April 14, 2026.