BEAUMONT, Texas — A Port Arthur man, who was found guilty of fatally shooting another man after a minor altercation at a pizza restaurant in 2019, will spend the next 46 years in prison.
The punishment for Martin Vincent Pettway, Jr., 23, who shot and killed Jesse Rodriguez during daylight on Dowlen Road under the Eastex Freeway overpass, was determined on Friday shortly after 2:30 p.m.
Pettway was found guilty of murder on Friday. The jury began deliberating at about 10 a.m. Thursday and returned a verdict just after 9 a.m. Friday.
Rodriguez's loved ones spoke during the family impact statement. They asked Pettway's decision to plead not guilty made them relive the pain of losing Rodriguez all over again.
"Martin Pettway, how dare you," Rodriguez's family said. "You had the audacity to plead not guilty? To put my family through everything all over again, to re-live that nightmare!"
Loved ones of Rodriguez said Pettway's actions in 2019 put more than just Rodriguez in danger.
“Your lack of remorse, and your public disregard for other innocent bystanders who were on the road that day tell me that you are a threat to our society," Rodriguez's family said.
Rodriguez's family said they are happy with the verdict.
“I’m glad that you are serving time, that you were found guilty, because you did believe that you were God when you took the innocent life of somebody," Rodriguez's family said.
Pettway's trail began on Tuesday, June 7, 2022, in Jefferson County's 252nd District Court before Judge Raquel West.
During opening statements on Tuesday prosecutor Luke Nichols told the jury everything started with an interaction inside CiCi's Pizza where Rodriguez scooted his chair out and bumped into Pettway's chair.
"You'll hear testimony that as Jessie got up to leave, he stood his chair back and kind of bumped somebody and there was a little exchange of words and that was pretty much it," said Nichols.
He said later there were words exchanged in the parking lot, but there was no fight.
Nichols told the jury that Pettway was a passenger in a car that ended up behind the victim's truck, and five shots were fired, one of them killing Rodriguez. He told the jury that Pettway is the one who fired the shots.
Defense attorney Audwin Samuel told the jury it wasn't that simple, saying Pettway was not the shooter.
Samuel countered that driver of the car Pettway was riding in did the shooting.
He also said the motivation behind the shooting was a jealous lover, not the incident with the chair.
Pettway and three others, Xavier Parrish, Nayah Mayfield and Taylor Jones, were indicted on first-degree murder charges in October of 2019. Officers believe all three suspects were with Pettway when the deadly shooting took place.
However, prosecutors believe Pettway fired the gun that killed Rodriguez, so he is their main focus.
Pettway is currently being held in the Jefferson County Jail on bonds totaling more than $1 million.
What happened?
The fatal shooting happened under the Eastex Freeway overpass at Dowlen Road near Parkdale Mall on Saturday afternoon, August 17, 2019. Police said at the time that the shooting happened after a “disturbance” in Cici’s Pizza located in the 5800 block of Eastex Freeway.
Pettway and Rodriguez "interacted" inside the restaurant. Police said calling the disturbance an altercation "would be a stretch," according to file stories.
Rodriguez left the restaurant and was followed by Pettway and the three other suspects. Witnesses at the scene told police the four suspects were seen getting into a black Ford Fusion, according to file stories.
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Witnesses told investigators there were multiple gunshots from the inside of the Ford Fusion. Rodriguez was shot in the head while stopped at a traffic light and died in the hospital.
Pettway was arrested two days after the shooting took place thanks to a Crime Stoppers tip.