Prosecutors said surveillance footage showed Raymond Hernandez still carrying the weapon after Leonel Chavez Jr. was shot.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Surveillance footage, witness accounts and a gun carried away from a South Side home helped prosecutors win a murder conviction that sent Raymond Hernandez to prison for 45 years.
The Bexar County Criminal District Attorney’s Office said Hernandez, 33, was sentenced by Judge Jennifer Pena after being convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Leonel Chavez Jr. The fatal shooting happened in April 2021, but the case reached its punishment stage in 2026. Prosecutors described a chain of evidence that began inside a home on West Baetz Boulevard and continued along nearby streets after Hernandez fled with the firearm.
The evidence trail started with a tattoo session at a friend’s house. Chavez, 46, was working as a tattoo artist at the residence in the 800 block of West Baetz Boulevard when Hernandez arrived or was present to get tattoo work done, according to prosecutors. The two men argued. Authorities have not publicly released a detailed transcript of the exchange, and the record made public does not say whether anyone tried to separate them before the shot. What prosecutors did say is that Hernandez pulled a gun during the argument and fired at Chavez, turning a private appointment into a homicide scene.
People at or near the home became the first part of the case. A witness heard the gunshot, saw Chavez fall and confronted Hernandez after the shooting, prosecutors said. A neighbor also reported hearing gunfire as Hernandez left on foot, according to local accounts from the time. Those calls and statements placed police on the South Side block just before the investigation expanded beyond the house. Officers were looking not only for a shooting suspect but also for a firearm that had not been left behind at the scene.
The next piece came from video. Prosecutors said surveillance footage captured Hernandez less than a mile from the home while he was still holding the murder weapon. That detail helped bridge the moments between the gunshot and the arrest. It also gave investigators a way to track the suspect’s movement after he left West Baetz Boulevard. Local reports said police soon found Hernandez several blocks away and that he still had a gun when he was taken into custody. Authorities have not said in the public summaries whether forensic testing, shell casings or gunshot residue were discussed at trial.
The gun mattered because the case was built around an argument that escalated quickly and then moved out of the house. Prosecutors did not describe a long search for a hidden weapon. They described a man who shot Chavez, walked away and was seen nearby still armed. That sequence allowed the state to tie together the witness account, the shooting scene and the arrest. It also shaped the public explanation of why the case ended in a first-degree murder conviction rather than a lesser result.
Texas law treats murder as a first-degree felony in most cases, and the punishment range is broad. A person convicted of a first-degree felony can be sentenced to five to 99 years or life in prison, with a possible fine. Hernandez received 45 years. The sentence does not erase the years between the shooting and the final court action, but it establishes the punishment ordered by the 290th Criminal District Court. The district attorney’s office did not say whether Hernandez would seek an appeal or whether any post-sentencing motions were pending.
Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales tied the outcome to accountability for violent crime. “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. The statement came after the sentence was announced and after Hernandez had been found guilty. It did not give new details about the argument, the relationship between Hernandez and Chavez, or whether Chavez knew Hernandez before the tattoo visit.
The location was a residential stretch of the South Side, not a courtroom, shop counter or public entertainment district. The 800 block of West Baetz Boulevard sits near Commercial Avenue, in an area where a gunshot would draw attention from neighbors. The case record described Chavez as a tattoo artist doing work at the home. It described Hernandez as someone there to get a tattoo. The two facts made the shooting stand out: a service appointment, a dispute and a weapon carried away afterward.
For investigators, the scene likely held several types of evidence: the place where Chavez fell, statements from people who saw or heard the shooting, the suspect’s path away from the home and the gun recovered after the arrest. Public summaries do not spell out every exhibit shown to jurors or the order in which prosecutors presented them. They do show the main structure of the case. Hernandez was placed at the home, accused of firing the shot, connected to the firearm after he left and later convicted of murder.
Chavez’s death became one of many San Antonio homicide cases that can take years to reach final punishment. The span from April 2021 to the 2026 sentencing included arrest, charging, court settings, trial preparation and the final judgment. That pace can leave families and neighborhoods waiting for a conclusion long after police tape is gone. In this case, the final punishment was a decades-long prison term for Hernandez and a formal court finding that he murdered Chavez.
The next step is the prison and court record that follows sentencing. Hernandez is now under a 45-year term, and any future challenge would have to proceed through the legal system. Prosecutors have said the central evidence showed what happened after the gunshot: Hernandez left, the gun went with him, and the case followed both.
Author note: Last updated June 21, 2026.