In Texas, Raymond Hernandez was sentenced after a 2021 shooting that killed tattoo artist Leonel Chavez Jr.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — More than five years after tattoo artist Leonel Chavez Jr. was shot at a South Side home, Raymond Hernandez has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for murder.
The sentence marked the final courtroom milestone in a case that began with a call about gunfire in April 2021 and ended with a first-degree murder judgment in Bexar County. Hernandez, 33, was punished by Judge Jennifer Pena of the 290th Criminal District Court. Chavez, 46, was killed at a friend’s house after prosecutors said a tattoo visit turned into an argument and then a shooting.
The first date in the case was April 2, 2021. Chavez was at a residence in the 800 block of West Baetz Boulevard, near Commercial Avenue, working as a tattoo artist. Hernandez was there to get a tattoo, according to the district attorney’s office. At some point, the men argued. The public account does not identify the topic of the dispute, and prosecutors have not released a detailed minute-by-minute timeline of the moments before the gunshot. They have said the argument ended when Hernandez pulled a gun and shot Chavez.
The next phase lasted minutes, not years. A witness heard the gunshot, saw Chavez fall and confronted Hernandez before the shooting was reported. Hernandez left on foot, authorities said. The gun went with him. Surveillance footage later showed him less than a mile away, still carrying the weapon. Police soon took him into custody, and local reporting from the time said he still had a gun when officers found him several blocks from the scene. Chavez died from the gunshot injuries, and Hernandez entered the criminal court system.
After the arrest came the slower part of the case. Murder prosecutions can pass through indictment, discovery, hearings, trial preparation and sentencing before a final punishment is ordered. Public summaries of the Hernandez case do not describe every court setting or delay between 2021 and 2026. They do show the result: Hernandez was convicted of murder, a first-degree felony under Texas law, and received a sentence that will keep him in the Texas prison system for decades unless later legal action changes the judgment.
Texas law gives judges and juries a wide punishment range for first-degree felonies. The minimum is five years in prison, and the maximum can be 99 years or life. Hernandez’s 45-year sentence is far above the minimum but short of a life term. The district attorney’s office did not announce a fine, a plea deal or a separate sentence tied to the weapon. It also did not say whether Hernandez plans to appeal. Those issues, if they arise, would be handled through later court filings.
Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said the conviction and sentence showed that prosecutors would pursue accountability. “Today’s conviction and sentencing uphold our commitment to holding offenders accountable and reassure our community that we will continue to work diligently to protect and serve,” Gonzales said. His comment came at the end of the public process, after the evidence had been presented and the judge had imposed punishment. It was the office’s clearest public statement about the meaning of the case after years in the system.
The timeline also shows how quickly a neighborhood event can become a long legal record. At the start, the case involved a house, a tattoo artist, a man seeking tattoo work, an argument and a single fatal act. By the end, it involved a district court, a felony conviction, a prison term and the state rules that govern incarceration and any future parole review. The facts announced by prosecutors stayed consistent across that span: Chavez was shot during the argument, Hernandez left with the gun and video showed him nearby afterward.
The case remains limited in some public details. Officials have not said whether Hernandez and Chavez knew each other before that day, whether Hernandez had already received any tattoo work, or whether the shooting occurred inside the home or just outside it. Some reports described the shooting as outside a South Side home, while prosecutors described Chavez as being at the home and working there when the argument broke out. The location, victim, defendant and sentence are clear. The full personal history behind the argument has not been publicly laid out.
Chavez’s work as a tattoo artist is central to the case because it explains why the men were in the same place. Tattooing can happen in shops, at private homes or among people who know one another, but the legal case did not turn on licensing or business rules. It turned on the shooting. Prosecutors did not accuse Chavez of causing the violence. They said Hernandez escalated the dispute by pulling a gun, firing at Chavez and leaving with the weapon.
For the South Side neighborhood, the end of the case came long after the police response. The house on West Baetz Boulevard returned to daily life, but the murder case kept moving through Bexar County courts. The sentence announced in 2026 gives the court record a stopping point. It also gives Chavez’s death a formal judgment, naming Hernandez as the person convicted of killing him and setting the punishment at 45 years.
Hernandez now faces the prison term imposed by the 290th Criminal District Court. The next milestones, if any, would come through appeal notices, post-conviction filings or later corrections records. As of the sentencing announcement, the five-year path from West Baetz Boulevard to the courthouse ended with a murder conviction and a 45-year sentence.
Author note: Last updated June 21, 2026.