Patrocinio Perez avoided a capital murder trial by pleading guilty, but a judge ordered five life-range prison terms to run consecutively.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A Utah murder prosecution that once carried the possibility of a death sentence ended with a plea agreement, five guilty pleas and a prison term that will keep Patrocinio Perez incarcerated for at least 45 years. The Aug. 24 sentence resolved the central case arising from a 2021 Magna house-party shooting that killed Ivan Valenzuela, 18, and Juan Valentine Rodriguez, 19, and wounded a 17-year-old girl.
The path to that sentence changed significantly during nearly five years of litigation. Perez was originally charged with two counts of aggravated murder and other felonies after the Aug. 15, 2021, shooting. Prosecutors later amended the murder case so that the allegations could support capital punishment and filed notice that they intended to seek the death penalty if he were convicted. By 2026, however, the state and defense had negotiated a resolution under which Perez pleaded guilty instead of proceeding to trial, eliminating both the uncertainty of a verdict and the possibility of a death sentence in the case.
The agreement reduced the recommended minimum on each aggravated murder count from 25 years to life to 15 years to life. Perez also pleaded guilty to three first-degree felony firearm-discharge charges. Prosecutors dismissed other allegations, including obstruction of justice and possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, and the deal addressed charges in additional pending cases. Yet the agreement did not make the eventual prison term short. It left Third District Judge Heather Brereton to decide whether the individual sentences would run concurrently, allowing much of the time to overlap, or consecutively, requiring one term to follow another.
Brereton chose consecutive terms. She imposed two sentences of 15 years to life for aggravated murder and three sentences of five years to life for the firearm offenses. Together, their minimum terms add up to 45 years. The judge described the killings as “horrendous” and “senseless” and told Perez that the plea agreement was a “gift” in light of the two deaths, the wounded teenager and the large number of young people exposed to the violence. Her decision allowed Perez to receive the sentence ranges contemplated by the negotiated deal while still making each conviction carry separate practical weight.
That outcome followed a prosecution built around what happened inside a crowded Magna home five years earlier. Police were called to the residence on Aug. 15, 2021, and arrived as partygoers were leaving. Investigators estimated that 30 to 50 teenagers and young adults had been at the gathering. Officers found Rodriguez with fatal injuries and Valenzuela critically wounded. Valenzuela later died at a hospital. Autumn Baker, then 17, had also been shot in the arm. What began as a double-homicide investigation in a house filled with potential witnesses eventually focused on Perez.
Charging documents said investigators received reports that Perez had been telling people he was responsible. Authorities then used call information, Uber records and Snapchat location data to place him near the party around the time of the shootings. Investigators said a girl had sent Perez the address through Snapchat and that a friend drove him to the home. After Perez was arrested, police said he acknowledged entering the house and shooting Rodriguez and Valenzuela before leaving. He also gave investigators the reason he claimed to have acted: He believed the two men were speaking negatively about his friends.
That explanation remained important years later because prosecutors said Perez did not know the victims. At sentencing, Deputy Salt Lake County attorney Vincent Meister said Perez had also referred to a haircut he associated with a rival gang, though prosecutors said neither Rodriguez nor Valenzuela had the haircut in question. Meister rejected the idea that the shooting was defensive. He told the court that Perez moved close to the victims without alerting them, shot Rodriguez and then shot Valenzuela moments later. The state characterized the attack as an ambush rather than a confrontation that escalated into gunfire.
The prosecution also placed Perez’s conduct after the Magna shooting into a wider pattern. Meister said Perez later used social media to boast about weapons and ammunition, including references to “upgrading his belt” and ammunition he called “ultra lethal.” Court filings in separate matters accused Perez of involvement in additional shootings during the same general period. In one later-filed case, prosecutors alleged that Perez fired at a vehicle two days before the Magna killings. Other proceedings involved allegations of additional gun violence after the murders. Those matters contributed to the complicated legal landscape that prosecutors and the defense eventually sought to resolve through negotiations.
One of those later allegations arose after a home connected to a witness in an unrelated homicide investigation was struck by gunfire. Prosecutors accused Perez in that matter of obstruction and firearm offenses, alleging that the witness had previously been threatened and assaulted. Another case tied Perez to gunfire in the days before the Magna party. Such allegations were separate from the evidence proving the murders of Rodriguez and Valenzuela, and some were resolved or dismissed as part of the broader plea process. They nevertheless help explain why Perez’s court record had expanded well beyond a single prosecution by the time the murder case approached trial.
The potential death penalty added another layer to the negotiations. Capital cases can involve years of pretrial litigation over evidence, eligibility, jury selection and sentencing procedure. In Perez’s case, prosecutors had already taken the formal step of signaling that capital punishment was on the table. The eventual plea changed that trajectory. The state obtained murder convictions without a trial, while Perez received reduced recommended minimums and no death sentence. Brereton’s authority over consecutive sentencing, however, meant the agreement did not predetermine how the five individual terms would combine.
At the final hearing, prosecutors argued that the number of victims justified treating the terms separately. Meister pointed to Rodriguez and Valenzuela, to Baker and to the dozens of young people at the party who saw the violence or its aftermath. Baker submitted a victim-impact statement describing post-traumatic stress, difficulty sleeping and problems with loud sounds since being wounded at 17. Valenzuela’s sister spoke about how her family continued to experience his absence and asked that he be remembered for his place within the family and among his friends, not simply for the way he died.
The defense presented the guilty pleas as evidence that Perez was accepting responsibility. Attorney Rudy Bautista said Perez had recognized how wrong his past conduct had been and had developed a different appreciation for life. Perez offered an apology to the victims’ families. Brereton acknowledged the negotiated agreement but made clear that accepting its recommended sentencing ranges did not require her to erase the separate consequences of the five convictions. Her consecutive-sentence ruling became the mechanism that turned two 15-year minimum terms and three five-year minimum terms into at least 45 years.
A separate Perez sentence was ordered to run concurrently with the Magna punishment, so it does not extend the minimum beyond 45 years. Early coverage of the sentencing briefly calculated the minimum at 30 years before being corrected to include all three consecutive firearm sentences. The final structure is straightforward: at least 15 years for the first murder count, another 15 for the second, and a combined minimum of 15 years for the three firearm convictions. Because the sentences are indeterminate and carry life maximums, the actual period of incarceration could exceed the minimum.
The plea agreement therefore produced two outcomes that can appear contradictory only if the structure is overlooked. Perez received a substantial benefit by avoiding a capital trial and by receiving lower recommended minimums on the aggravated murder counts. At the same time, Brereton used consecutive sentencing to ensure that the separate convictions did not collapse into a single 15-year minimum period. Her ruling reflected the state’s argument that two deaths and a third shooting victim warranted punishment measured separately rather than almost entirely at the same time.
For the victims’ relatives, those legal distinctions unfolded against a simpler history. Rodriguez and Valenzuela went to a house party in August 2021 and did not survive it. Baker left wounded and later described psychological effects that continued years afterward. Prosecutors said Perez acted against two people he did not know based on what he thought they had said about his friends. The plea agreement settled what a jury otherwise would have been asked to decide, but the sentencing hearing remained the place where the human consequences were put into the record.
With Brereton’s order, the most serious prosecution arising from the Magna shooting is no longer moving toward trial. Perez stands convicted of two aggravated murders and three firearm felonies and faces at least 45 years in prison. The plea removed the possibility of an execution and avoided a capital proceeding, but the consecutive terms ensured that the negotiated resolution still produced a sentence measured in decades and potentially lasting for the rest of his life.
Author note: Last updated September 30, 2026.