SAN ANTONIO — Guilty. It’s a decision that caused a powerful reaction in the 290th District Court this afternoon.

The jury has spoken in the capital murder trial of 21-year-old Christopher Preciado, who was accused of shooting pregnant mom Savanah Soto and her partner Matthew Guerra back in December 2023.

Soto was in the final days of her pregnancy. A CLEAR Alert was issued on Christmas Day 2023 after she did not show up for her scheduled induction. Their bodies were found with bullet wounds on Dec. 26, 2023, in a car found at a northwest-side apartment complex. 

Nine days later, Christopher Preciado and his father, Ramon Preciado, were booked into the Bexar County jail for the crime. 

Earlier this week, the jury saw video of Preciado’s interview with police in 2024 when he said Matthew and Savanah were killed in the chaos of him trying to defend himself. A detective testified that the evidence they found does not match his story. Wednesday, a medical examiner testified that the autopsy showed their gunshot wounds were consistent with an intentional shooting. 

See updates from the final day of the trial below. 

2:35 p.m. The capital murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence without the possibilty of parole. The judge confirmed the sentence. 

2:25 p.m. The verdict was read in the courtroom, and Christopher Preciado has been found guilty of a capital murder on all three counts.

12:20 p.m. The closing arguments have concluded. The jury now has the case.

12:15 p.m. Alban has a slide of the defense’s case that says, “THERE IS NO DNA.  NO GSR. NO PRINTS. NO WITNESSES. NO VIDEO. NOT HIS GUN. CAN’T TELL IT’S HIM ON SOME VIDEO.” She says they have disproved the statements.

12:10 p.m. Alban said: “We didn’t find Matthew’s keys (in the car). It’s because Chris had them and used them to steal from their apartment. He wrote ‘We are going to pick up shit that is valuable.  I am trying to make real bread but we have to be fast.’ These were his plans all along. This is not self-defense.”

12:05 p.m. Alban said: “They have said regularly that we don’t have any witnesses. We didn’t choose where this crime happened, he did. That we have the evidence that we have and we don’t have the evidence that we don’t.”

11:55 a.m. Referring to forensic evidence and the shooting in the car, Albin said: “You know it didn’t happen the way he (Christopher) says it happened.”

Then about the rings, she said: “These are very specific rings. That’s not a coincidence. I want you to think about what it took for him to remove those rings from Matthew’s lifeless body. We know from that surveillance video. He and his parents were back there for a while.”

11:50 a.m. Alban continues: Christopher said his parents “didn’t know what they were going to be doing when they came to help him. So why did Ramon bring a towel?”

“He said he didn’t let his dad look int he car. His dad didn’t know, he didn’t wipe anything down, his dad didn’t see.” Albin then showed the surveillance video from the apartment parking lot. “These are lies. You can’t trust anything he says about that night.”

11:45 a.m. Alban continues by saying Christopher is “not afraid of that man (Matthew). He was more than happy to see him post all of that (items he possessed) so he could plot and plan and prepare to take all of it away from him.”

She questioned the defense’s focus on a lack of DNA evidence: “We did bring you DNA. That’s Matthew’s blood on that money right outside Chris’ house. How did that get there? Unless he lied.”

11:40 a.m.  Alban continues that Christopher Preciado “murdered three people right before Christmas! He wants people to believe he’s a hard ass because he’s not. He tells Anthony he was arrested by Leon Valley but he wasn’t.”

“He’s telling Anthony how cool he is. He is creating an online persona. He’s bragging! Until the cops get to him, and all of a sudden he’s scared. Give me a break! We all know his intent. We proved everything. I made a list of all his lies.  I lost count at 20.”

11:35 a.m. Alban continues talking about the overall case: “We all know he is putting on an act because of everything he said and did in the days in between. He didn’t call the cops and his parents helped him. That’s what we know.” 

“You don’t need every single piece of the puzzle to see what it is. We have filled in the puzzle in so many ways.”

“These text messages prove Matthew was not agitated (or) scared. Chris was the one on pins and needles…. He’s outside pacing with hand on forehead. Watch the video! … He is nervous. He knows what he is about to do. Savanah and Matt had no idea. He didn’t know he was a wolf underneath and they walked into an ambush unarmed.”

11:30 a.m. Alban says they brought 30 witnesses to prove their case and they more than proved it. They used GPS data, social media messages and thousands of hours of surveillance video show what happened inside the car. 

11:27 a.m. Prosecutor Melissa Alban takes over closing arguments. She starts by saying they never said that Savanah and Matthew were angels. But, she repeats that it doesn’t justify what happened to them.

11:25 a.m. Guerrero says on the night in question, things went wrong but it still doesn’t prove that Christopher is guilty of capital murder.

11:23 a.m. Guerrero says the arguments made by the prosecution are all assumptions, and he does not deserve the maximum sentence under capital murder. 

11:17 a.m. ‘There is no forensic evidence to prove who did what,” Guerrero says. 

11:15 a.m. Going back to the DNA evidence, Guerrero reminds the jury the DNA evidence did not implicate Christopher in any way. His DNA was not found inside the car. She also reminds the jury that a wound can appear intentional but cannot prove intention, as the medical examiner testified. 

11:08 a.m. Guerrero says Christopher said Matthew had a gun pointed a certain way.  The detective said it was virtually impossible but then he showed the jury it was possible. 

11:04 a.m. Guerrero reminds the jury that Matthew Guerra was a drug dealer and not the “family man” that the prosecution had painted him as. She reminds the jury he took his pregnant girlfriend who was due to have a baby the next day to a drug deal. 

10:59 a.m. Defense attorney Monica Guerrero picks up closing arguments. She begins by saying Christopher was a stoner teenager not capable of being a killer. 

10:54 a.m. “That’s not science by any stretch of the imagination, that’s opinion, that’s a theory.” The defense says the evidence presented by the prosecution was just theories, they cannot say for sure what happened. 

10:50 a.m. The defense says the prosecution downplayed the importance of DNA in a murder trial. 

10:49 a.m. The defense reminds the jury that several of the witness admitted they could not prove intent. 

10:47: “There can be no mistakes here with your decision,” The defense attorney says there is no video evidence, no DNA evidence or fingerprints that put the gun in Christopher’s hand or show that he intended to kill the family. 

10:45 a.m. The defense takes over closing arguments. 

10:40 a.m. “We met our burden three times over.” Lewis wraps up his closing arguments. It is passed to the defense. 

10:36 a.m. Lewis urges the jury not to go with the lesser charges the defense is proposing. He repeats that the evidence shows that Christopher intentionally murdered. 

10:34 a.m. “He needed the car parts, he needed the money, so he killed.” Lewis explains that the jury must find Christopher guilty of all three counts of capital murder together. He repeats the gun used in the crime came from Christopher’s house. 

10:32 a.m. Prosecutor Ross Lewis also brings up that the evidence shows Christopher planned to rob Matthew, which was made clear in his Instagram messages ahead of the murder. In those messages, he told a contact that he was expecting to come into some money the night of Dec. 21, which is when Savanah and Matthew died. He was under pressure to pay the contact for some car parts he had ordered. 

10:30 a.m. The prosecutor says Preciado knowingly shot Matthew first and then turned the gun and shot Savanah second. He says the evidence is clear on that. 

10:27 a.m. The prosecutor is begining the closing arguments by saying “common sense” dictates that Preciado must be found guilty. 

10:25 a.m. The judge continues to read the jury instructions. 

10:02 a.m. The judge continues to read a long document providing definitions of various terms for the jury. The document she is reading will also be available for them review later. 

10 a.m. Judge Pena also mentions charges of manslaughter and criminally-negligent homicide, which are lesser charges that the defense mentioned yesterday. 

9:58 p.m. The judge begins the proceedings by explaining the definition of capital murder. She says it includes the murder of a child under the age of ten, murder committed in the course of a robbery, or murder of multiple persons, along with other factors. 

9:52 a.m. The judge has arrived in the courtroom and is speaking to lawyers in a sidebar. 

9:50 a.m. We are learning more about the charge of capital murder that the jury will decide on. There will be multiple options for the jury, including a lesser charge. It will take some time for the jury to hear all the options in court before they go into their deliberations. 

9:45 a.m. The courtroom is packed in the gallery, with victim’s family members providing each other comfort. Ramon Preciado and Myrta Romanos are sitting in the front row, surrounded by bailiffs for their protection. 

9:40 a.m. Christopher Preciado has arrived in court, along with some of the lawyers and gallery members. 

9:30 a.m. Closing arguments set to begin in the 290th District Court. 

The families have been waiting for justice since Dec. 21, 2023. That was the day the victims were last seen alive in the 6000 block of Grissom Road in Leon Valley.

Initially, the incident was handled as a missing person case. Soto, who was one week overdue to give birth, failed to show up at the hospital for a planned delivery for Fabian. Family members said she and her partner vanished, sparking massive search effort that ended four days later. They had both been shot in the head.

At the time, San Antonio police said the car had been in the parking lot for days. They also said they thought the killing was due to an argument over a drug transaction. After an aggressive investigation, Preciado was arrested on Jan. 4, 2024. He has been in jail ever since.

At the outset, Preciado told police he and Guerra argued during their meeting and he accused Guerra of pulling a weapon on him. Police said his claim of self-defense had some inconsistencies and the physical evidence didn’t match the story being told.

In addition to capital murder, Preciado’s other charges are tampering with a corpse and abuse of a corpse without legal authority. There have been some complicating factors, in that there are others who have been charged in connection with aftermath of the deaths.

Christopher’s father, Ramon Preciado, and his mother, Myrta Romanos, were both charged with helping Christopher dispose of the bodies. The charges against the mom were dismissed in November, pending further investigation.

The charges against Ramon will go forward at another time. He is out of jail on bond while he awaits trial. In addition to the criminal case, a $1 million civil lawsuit has also been filed against the three accused of involvement in the deaths.

The complicated and tragic details will take a while to present. It’s said officials expect testimony will take more than one week before they get it into the hands of the jury.

The trial is unfolding in the 290th District Court, overseen by Judge Jennifer Pena.