Franco Xavier Summers changed course on the morning jurors were expected to begin hearing evidence in Christopher Fuentes’ killing.
SAN ANTONIO — A murder case that was ready for opening statements ended instead with a no-contest plea, a guilty finding and a 25-year prison sentence for Franco Xavier Summers in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend’s father.
Summers, 34, accepted the deal Tuesday as his trial in the 2024 killing of Christopher Paul Fuentes was about to begin. Visiting Judge Jefferson Moore accepted the no-contest plea to murder and found Summers guilty. Prosecutors dismissed charges of assault involving family violence by strangulation and evading arrest or detention as part of the agreement. The late resolution spared both sides the uncertainty of a jury verdict, but it also meant much of the evidence that had been assembled for trial was never presented and challenged in open court.
The timing was significant because lawyers had already moved beyond the early stages of the case. According to the San Antonio Express-News, jurors were set to hear opening statements Tuesday morning when Summers began considering a plea that defense attorney Martin Guerra and prosecutor Lauren Scott had discussed. Moore was assigned after state District Judge Benjamin Robertson, who presides over the 226th District Court, recused himself. Summers chose no contest rather than expressly admitting guilt, but under the agreement the court could enter a conviction and sentence him on the murder charge. That distinction mattered procedurally even though the practical result was the same for sentencing: a judgment of conviction replaced the trial that had been scheduled to start that morning.
Had the trial proceeded, prosecutors were expected to rely heavily on an eyewitness account from Fuentes’ daughter and surveillance footage from the area outside a North Side Taco Palenque. The daughter was Summers’ girlfriend at the time of the killing. She told investigators that she, Summers and Fuentes had been drinking at an apartment before deciding to go out. An argument began when Fuentes did not want to pay a cover charge to enter a nightclub, according to the arrest affidavit. Summers became angry, the daughter said, and repeatedly announced that he had a gun while the dispute continued.
The state’s chronology then moved from the nightclub to the restaurant parking lot. Fuentes and his daughter got out of Summers’ vehicle and walked away. Investigators said Summers drove toward them rather than leaving. Surveillance footage showed Fuentes approach the driver’s side of the vehicle and reach inside, appearing to grab Summers’ arm. The men struggled briefly. Fuentes motioned for his daughter to run, according to descriptions of the video in court reporting. Summers then fired several shots, striking Fuentes multiple times. The daughter escaped into the restaurant. Fuentes, 43, died at the scene, and the medical examiner later classified his death as a homicide.
A jury could have been asked to assess not only what the video showed but what legal meaning to give the sequence. The defense would have had the chance to question witnesses about Fuentes reaching into the vehicle and to test the daughter’s account of threats earlier in the evening. Prosecutors could have argued that the earlier statements about the gun and Summers’ conduct after Fuentes and his daughter left the vehicle helped explain the final encounter. Because the case ended with a plea before openings, neither side delivered that full theory to jurors and no verdict resolved those competing interpretations.
The prosecution also had evidence about what happened after the shooting. Police said Summers drove away from the restaurant and was not arrested until the following afternoon. Officers had responded to an apartment complex in the 18200 block of Blanco Road for an unrelated family disturbance when they determined Summers was inside. They established a perimeter, and he eventually came out and was taken into custody without incident. Summers was booked on the active murder warrant and other unrelated charges. A judge initially set a $400,000 bond in the murder case.
The plea hearing replaced what would have been the start of an evidentiary contest with victim impact statements from Fuentes’ relatives. Christina Fuentes, a cousin, described him as a grandson, son, father and friend and told the court that imperfection did not make a life less valuable. Another cousin, David Rocha, spoke of lasting damage to the family. Their statements did not address the technical questions that would have occupied a jury. Instead, they focused on the human result of the shooting and the absence Fuentes left behind.
Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said the case was a reminder that violence can grow quickly from a minor disagreement. He credited prosecutors and police with securing accountability for Fuentes’ death. By the time Gonzales made that statement, the court had already entered the conviction, changing the legal status of Summers from an accused defendant awaiting trial to a convicted murderer serving a negotiated sentence. The prosecution did not need to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury because Summers’ plea ended the trial process before that stage.
One issue that drew attention outside the courtroom was Summers’ earlier criminal record. In 2013, he was arrested in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Roger Rodriguez Jr. Summers said he acted in self-defense, and prosecutors later dismissed the murder charge because they said the available evidence was insufficient. That case did not result in a murder conviction and should not be treated as proof that Summers committed the earlier homicide unlawfully. In 2019, police arrested Summers after a standoff that they said involved a woman and a child inside an apartment. KSAT reported that he later served two years in prison in connection with that incident.
After the 2024 shooting, relatives of Rodriguez and Fuentes appeared in local news coverage together and questioned why Summers had remained free after the earlier case. Their criticism reflected the families’ belief that the 2013 system response had failed them. Legally, however, the old dismissal and the new prosecution were separate matters. The 25-year sentence imposed this week is punishment for Fuentes’ killing based on Summers’ 2026 plea. It is not an additional punishment for the 2013 death or for unrelated allegations that were never proven as part of this murder case.
The plea agreement also narrowed Summers’ exposure by resolving the case on one murder count while eliminating two other pending charges. Public reporting does not establish what sentence prosecutors would have sought after a trial conviction or what defense strategy Guerra had prepared if testimony began. The agreement made those questions moot. It fixed a 25-year term and removed the possibility that jurors would acquit Summers, convict him, or return without a unanimous verdict after hearing the evidence.
For now, Summers will have to serve at least half of the 25-year term before he may be considered for parole, according to the court reporting on the sentence. Parole consideration is not a promise of release. For the court system, the deal ended a murder trial before its first opening statement. For Fuentes’ relatives, it produced a conviction and a defined prison term nearly two years after a cover-charge dispute turned into a fatal shooting outside a restaurant.
Author note: Last updated August 30, 2026.