Global Courant
A man convicted last summer of running into a fundraising mob in Pennsylvania, killing one and injuring 19 others, then went home and bludgeoned his mother to death, has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
President Judge Gary Norton told Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes, 25, in Columbia County Court Tuesday that his crimes were “the result of pure evil,” as he sentenced him to two life terms in the two deaths. He also imposed an additional 123 to 380 years for 19 attempted murders.
Authorities said Sura Reyes told investigators he was driving in Berwick after arguing with his mother on Aug. 13 and that he was “tired of fighting with his mother, including over money, and wanted to get rid of it.” At the same time, about 75 people had gathered in a closed parking lot outside the bar of the Intoxicology Department for a fundraiser for the victims of a fire in Nescopeck more than a week earlier that had killed seven adults and three children.
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Police said Sura Reyes told them he drove past the meeting, then turned around and went back to the bar “to drive through the crowd of people”. Rebecca Reese, 50, of Wilkes-Barre was killed and 19 others were injured, four of them seriously. Police said Sura Reyes told them that he then returned to his home in Nescopeck and saw his mother, 56-year-old Rosa Reyes, on the street and that he hit her with the vehicle and then hit her several times with a hammer.
Adrian Oswaldo Sura Reyes, of Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, is led from the Columbia County Courthouse following his June 27, 2023 sentencing in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. (Bob Kalinowski/The Citizens Voice via AP)
The (Bloomsburg) Press Enterprise reported that more than a dozen victims and supporters attended the sentencing, some weeping as they listened to testimony about that day, while others were still too hurt to attend, according to the district attorney’s office .
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Sura Reyes refused to speak in court, but told reporters outside that he was sorry. Defense attorney Janan Tallo said his client was remorseful and that his actions were “not necessarily a malicious criminal act” but more the result of a “mental health crisis”.
“Hopefully today can be the day when the healing may begin for some victims,” Tallo said.
Reese’s son, Devin Reese, 28, who attended the sentencing with his sisters, said the family was “grateful”.
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“He will be in prison for the rest of his life. I feel like justice has been done,” Reese said.
Prosecutors initially pursued the death penalty in the case, but dropped those plans after Sura Reyes agreed to plead guilty to all charges in June. The judge also fined Sura Reyes $1.05 million and ordered him to pay $411,000 in restitution, though prosecutors acknowledged it was unlikely the defendant would ever be able to pay that amount.
