LUBBOCK, Texas — Pablo Reyes, 30, pleaded guilty to Aggravated Robbery in connection with the 2019 missing-person-turned-homicide of Lubbock mother Sandy Cervantes. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Court records stated that officers were called to a robbery at Lucky Mart in the 1500 block of 34th Street on June 20. The victim of the robbery, David Rodriguez, reported that he was approached by two suspects, later identified as Reyes and Brandon Jay Cruz, 35, who robbed him, tied him up, and forced him into the trunk of his car.
Investigators later determined that Cervantes was kidnapped and met a tragic fate. Her remains were found in an abandoned Hockley County house on April 14, 2020. According to a press release from the Lubbock Police Department, Cervantes was shot and killed and taken to Hockley County. The suspects then disposed of her purse in a dumpster in Abernathy, and her vehicle was found fully engulfed in flames on Cesar E Chavez Drive on June 24.
Cruz pleaded guilty to Capital Murder in September and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Reyes will receive 1,648 days of credit for time spent behind bars and will have to serve at least half of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. It is worth noting that court documents spelled Reyes’s first name as “Pablo” while jail records spelled it as “Paublo.”