Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
UTAH STATE PRISON — A Utah County businessman who at one time was ordered to serve to up to life in the Utah State Prison and originally wasn't scheduled to have his first parole hearing until 2035, may end up being released much sooner.
Ramon Alfredo Somoza, 40, shot and killed Jesus Landin, 46, on Dec. 28, 2009, in the basement apartment of the event hall Somoza owned in American Fork, the Apollo Dance Hall. A couple of days later, Somoza wrapped Landin's body in garbage bags and duct tape and placed it in the desert near West Wendover, where it was discovered on Jan. 7, 2010. A white shower curtain had been placed over it to try and camouflage it in the snow.
Somoza was convicted of murder, a first-degree felony, and in 2012 was sentenced to a term of 15 years to life in prison. His first parole hearing was scheduled for 2035.
But Somoza appealed his conviction, representing himself in court for several years because he said no defense attorney would take his case. He claimed evidence that would have helped him was never presented at his trial.
After his motion for a new trial was filed and argued over multiple years, he eventually got a new attorney and was allowed to enter a new plea. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, as part of a plea bargain in December.
"I was OK with that because I realize what I did was wrong. And I totally get it, 100%," he said in a recording of his recent parole hearing.
He was resentenced to a term of one to 15 years in prison, with the court recommending that Somoza receive credit for the time he's been incarcerated since his arrest on Jan. 8, 2010.
On April 20, Somoza went before the Board of Pardons and Parole for the first time.
Somoza submitted 90 pages of information to the board prior to his hearing. He was very talkative during the one-hour hearing. Multiple times he stated he was naive to what was happening around him during the time of the killing, describing how he continued to make one bad decision after another, and how if he had only stopped to call police the situation would have had a much different outcome.
Somoza told Carrie Cochran, the board chairwoman, how he moved to Utah after growing up in a rough neighborhood of Los Angeles and was kidnapped by drug dealers one day. He said he moved to Salt Lake City because he thought it would be safer.
But some time after arriving, he said he "lost it," and had a breakdown due to unresolved psychological issues stemming from his kidnapping. Somoza told the board that Salt Lake police picked him up and involuntarily committed him to the psychiatric unit at the University of Utah Hospital for 12 days.
But after he was released, he still did not resolve his deeper issues, he said.
"I needed help. I was hurting inside and I made the mistake of not seeking counseling," Somoza said,
He said he continued to pursue his love of being an entrepreneur and opened the Apollo in 2008. Soon after, he hired a security company and requested two security guards at each event. Somoza said he wanted at least one of the guards to be able to speak Spanish since the majority of his clients were Hispanic. Landin was the person who was sent by the company, and he eventually moved into the basement apartment at the Apollo.
But Somoza said he ignored a lot of "red flags" about Landin, until one day a patron complained that he had been roughed up by the security guard.
"I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He had done a great job for months before I got the first serious complaint from a patron, and I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt when patrons would complain about the actions he was taking," Somoza told the board.
Somoza said he would leave early from most of the events held in his building or sometimes not go at all, leaving it to Landin to run the dance hall. But during the times when he did drop by, Somoza said he witnessed people doing drugs in the bathroom, and later began to notice the same group of uninvited people at each event. One night, he said he watched as Landin allowed the same group into the venue that was supposed to be reserved for a private party,
"It was almost like he rolled out the red carpet for them," he said.
He said it was then that he began to suspect that a drug distribution business was involved, but he did not call police.
"That's a mistake I'll never make again," he said.
He said he fired Landin on the phone — another mistake, according to Somoza. He said he should have fired Landin in person and done it when he had enough money to pay him for the work he had already completed. After he was fired on Dec. 28, 2009, Landin demanded to meet with Somoza claiming that Somoza still owed him $400.
"I should have just had the $400 and paid him and be done," Somoza said during the hearing, while continually saying he made "foolish decisions" and "a lot of silly mistakes, a lot of judgment calls that were just wrong."
He said Landin was 90 minutes late to the meeting and Somoza was on the phone when he arrived, so Somoza just kept talking because he was irritated. Landin eventually grabbed the phone out of Somoza's hand and threw it and started cursing at Somoza to give him his money, he said.
At that point, Landin pulled out a screwdriver and believed "he's getting ready to come at me," Somoza said. Somoza, who had a concealed weapons permit, responded by pulling out his gun and pointing it at Landin while his hand was shaking.
"What ... do you think you're going to do with that?" Somoza recalled Landin asking him.
"And then that's when he came forward, he lunged, he was coming in my direction with that screwdriver, and he's only a few feet away from me. And I fired my gun one time, just once, in the chest area, and he goes down," he said.
Immediately, Somoza said he felt remorse. "I didn't want it to come to that," he said.
But from there, Somoza said he started having the same mental breakdown he had had years earlier. He said his biggest mistake of the entire ordeal was not running out of the room at that point and calling police.
"Everything would have been different had I just done that. But I wasn't thinking straight," he said. "I think one of the worst decisions I made right after the tragedy was not to call police immediately."
After pacing the room, Landin was able to stand up again and, according to Somoza, came at him again with the screwdriver. That's when Somoza fired five more times, killing Landin.
The string of bad decisions then began to snowball, Somoza said, as he became paranoid about retaliation. But after a couple of days, he said he became "obsessed" with making sure Landin got a proper burial, so he moved the body to the desert where he said he believed it would be found.
"I'm profoundly ashamed of what I did," he said. "I'm terribly sorry for what I did."
Prosecutors noted in court documents after Somoza was convicted of manslaughter that they have not had contact with Landin's family since about 2011 and have been unable to locate them, "possibly because the family no longer resides within the United States."
The full five-member board will now decide whether to grant parole.
