A man who shot both his ex-wife and her new boyfriend was sentenced to 60 years in prison for attempted capital murder Friday morning.
The Tarrant County District Attorney said it took jurors only two minutes on Thursday to render a guilty verdict against 33-year-old Lenar Alexander Corales for wounding his ex, Alicia King, and her boyfriend, Victor Perez.
On Friday, Corales was sentenced to 60 years in prison; he must serve half of that sentence before being eligible for parole.
“The jury’s verdict in this case sends a significant message to this defendant and to the community as a whole that we take domestic violence extremely serious in Tarrant County,” said Rhett Parham, prosecutor with the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office. “We hope the verdict helps bring the King and Perez families closure from this heinous crime.”
Prosecutors said Perez and King were hosting a family gathering at her Hurst home on April 28, 2013, when Corales confronted the couple as they walked out of the house with Perez's 7-year-old son. Prosecutors said Corales pulled out a .38 caliber handgun, shot King in the chest and then shot Perez in the back and head. Corales then turned the gun back on his ex-wife and shot her in the forehead, prosecutors said.
Perez's son was not injured in the shooting.
Neighbors reported hearing gunshots and saw a man running from the scene.
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Both Perez and King were transported to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth where doctors said she died on the operating table but was able to be revived by emergency room doctors. After several surgeries, King was able to recover from her wounds. Perez was treated for his wounds and was released several days later.
During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that showed Corales had purchased the weapon just three weeks before the shooting and that he had been upset with his ex-wife after she said she wanted nothing to do with him.
King divorced her husband in 2010 after she said he put the lives of their three children in danger by having them in the car while he drove while intoxicated. King allowed her ex-husband to temporarily move back into her home in 2013 so that he could care for their children while she attended to her terminally ill mother.
She insisted that he leave the home after she learned he had been recording her getting out of the shower. Shortly after he moved out he began to harass and stalk her, prosecutors said, and he was even found hiding inside her bedroom closet on more than one occasion.
