A Norcross man will spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted in the killing of a 31-year-old Doraville resident inside a Gwinnett County hotel room in 2019.
Rodrigo Pinon-Lopez was found guilty Friday of felony murder and other charges after Ivan Pastor-Vital was found shot to death Aug. 29 in a third-floor room at the InTown Suites Hotel on Steve Reynolds Boulevard. Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Tracie Cason sentenced Pinon-Lopez to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus five consecutive years in confinement, prosecutors said.
Gwinnett police responded to the hotel room around 9:15 p.m. that summer night and found Pastor-Vital lying on the floor with gunshot wounds to the back of his neck and arm, according to the District Attorney’s Office. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
An investigation revealed that a man and a woman, later identified as Jonathan Gonzalez and Geraldy Gomez, were seen running from the room. After they were tracked down and interviewed, prosecutors said it was determined that Pinon-Lopez and another man, Julio Cesar Perez-Duran, were inside with the victim at the time of the killing.
All four suspects were seen in surveillance footage at the hotel before the shooting, police said.
According to the DA’s office, Gonzalez had allegedly set up a drug deal in the room under Gomez’s name, but the other men decided to make it a robbery without their knowledge.
Pinon-Lopez told police that Perez-Duran shot Pastor-Vital with a gun that Gonzalez gave him, the DA’s office said. He also stated that Perez-Duran grabbed a backpack full of methamphetamine off the victim and told him to take it.
Meanwhile, Gonzalez told police that when he went back to the room after the incident, Gomez said Pinon-Lopez shot the victim. The DA’s office on Tuesday said it was still unclear who pulled the trigger.
Pinon-Lopez was arrested a few weeks after the shooting. On Friday, he was also found guilty of conspiracy to violate the Georgia Controlled Substances Act and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, according to the DA’s office.
Perez-Duran has not been arrested. He is wanted on charges of felony murder and armed robbery, but his whereabouts are unknown. “To the best of our knowledge, he fled to Mexico in 2019 and has not been seen since,” prosecutors said.
Both Gonzalez and Gomez were sentenced after agreeing to plea deals. In May 2021, Gomez was given three years probation on a possession of heroin charge, while Gonzalez was later convicted on charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault and conspiracy to violate the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. He was sentenced this month to 30 years with the first 15 in confinement, according to the DA’s office.
“Should Julio ever be found, Jonathan’s plea deal will require him to testify at that trial as well, which was largely the basis for offering the plea,” prosecutors added.
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