GUILTY TX - Adam Espinoza, 20, San Antonio, 4 Jan 2010

Fewer people were looking forward to the new year more than Adam Espinoza.

The 20-year-old student, playwright, brass musician and singer was getting ready to leave San Antonio for the West Coast, tackling the 1,300 miles in between his hometown and his sister's home in a daylong haul across West Texas, Las Cruces, Tucson, Yuma and up the coast with "Lynda," his Mitsubishi sedan.

Instead, he became Doña Ana County's first homicide victim of 2010.

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Third Judicial District Chief Judge Jerald A. Valentine handed 18-year-old Irvin Rodolfo Ramirez a life sentence plus 10 1/2 years Wednesday afternoon. He will not be eligible for parole until 30 years. Ramirez was 16 when he shot Adam Espinoza just after midnight Jan. 5, 2010.

He, Jorge Manuel Murillo, now 20, and Javier Orozco, now 17, all gang members with extensive juvenile criminal records, had agreed to "jack" the next person to drive into the Anthony Welcome Center, according to court records. They had waited for about a half hour when Espinoza, driving from his home in San Antonio, Texas, en route to his sister's home in San Diego, Calif., pulled in to rest for the night.

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Murillo and Orozco also are in prison for Espinoza's killing. Murillo was sentenced to 38 years for second-degree murder and Orozco to 18 1/2 years for felony murder.

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