A 20-year-old man who shot and killed a Brooks man pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday morning.
Atilio Delgado will serve 25 years in prison, a judge ruled Tuesday in the presence of Delgado’s family and the family of the victim, James Cluney. Cluney’s family asked Justice Patrick Larson to impose a longer sentence, but the judge approved a sentence of 25 years that had been jointly recommended by prosecutors and Delgado’s defense attorneys.
Delgado had been charged with murder following the fatal shooting of Cluney, 49, in 2022 and, despite being 16 when he shot Cluney, was subsequently bound over to adult court last year because of the nature of the crime.
Courts denied the defendant’s appeal of the decision to be tried as an adult and be considered a juvenile several months later.
According to prosecutors, Delgado had known the victim at the time of the shooting as he had been dating Cluney’s daughter.
At the time of the shooting, Delgado was standing in the doorway of the victim’s house. Delgado shot Cluney in the chest, leg and torso six times, killing him, despite the efforts of Cluney’s wife to revive him via CPR while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
