A Highland man got a 5-year split term Thursday for a fatal stabbing in a meth-fueled confrontation in Gary.
Ruben Ortiz, 24, pleaded guilty in December to reckless homicide, a Level 5 felony. He was charged in the Oct .16, 2023, death of Christopher Gonzalez, 24.
Judge Natalie Bokota sentenced him to three years in prison, one in Lake County Community Corrections and one on probation.
Gary Police were called just before midnight Oct. 15, 2023, to the 2800 block of King Street. An officer said a woman was “screaming” in the middle of a field/empty lot and trying to save Gonzalez’s life. He appeared to have been stabbed in the chest, near his heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
His mother Sally Alvarez wrote her “life was charged for the worse,” Deputy Prosecutor Veronica Gonzalez, no relation to the victim, read in a letter in court.
He had his “demons,” but he “didn’t deserve to die,” Alvarez wrote.
Veronica Gonzalez asked for three years in prison and two in Lake County Community Corrections.
Defense lawyer Michael Lambert asked for a similar sentence, with substance abuse treatment. It was a “factor” in this “very tragic” case, he said.
Ortiz apologized to the victim’s family, saying he thought “about that night every day of my life.” He was “my brother as well,” Ortiz said.
As part of his sentence, Bokota ordered Ortiz to undergo substance abuse treatment and Moral Reconation Therapy.
A woman told police that multiple people — including Ortiz and a woman he was with — had been coming over and stealing her stuff preceding Gonzalez’s death. Earlier that day, the woman said she confronted that woman over her missing stuff, who denied taking it. Ortiz got between them. Scared, the woman backed off.
Gonzalez told them — Ortiz and a woman he was with — to leave. They left and came back a couple of times.
On the third and last time, a different woman — driving a blue Impala — gave them a ride back, because she wanted to get high there, according to the affidavit.
The Impala driver pulled up near the empty lot. The passengers — Ortiz and the woman he was with — got out and started to attack Gonzalez, who had walked over to the car.
Ortiz kneed the woman — who had her stuff taken — in the face. She then saw Gonzalez face down about 20 feet away.
“This is because of you,” the Impala driver, holding a hammer, told her.
Hours later, a witness at the Hard Rock Casino flagged down a security guard, pointing to a man and woman in the parking lot.
“They killed my friend last night,” the witness said. “They are getting away!”
Ortiz and the same woman from the fight were arrested walking on the 5400 block of W. 29th Avenue. He was barefoot and later admitted he lost his shoes. She admitted smoking meth earlier and had been taking the other woman’s stuff.
Ortiz said he shot up meth earlier that day. He denied taking the woman’s stuff. Other people told him Gonzalez had an “axe,” but investigators didn’t recover anything from the scene.
He said Gonzalez “exchanged words” with the woman he was with and hit her. Ortiz said he attacked Gonzalez to “defend” her and blacked out at some point, records allege.
mcolias@post-trib.com