Jose Alberto Concepcion, a 23-year-old Hispanic/Latino man from Hazleton, was found dead on January 19, 2016, after authorities were called to a dirt road off North Park Drive in the Humboldt Industrial Park in Hazle Township. What began as the discovery of a body in a remote, wooded industrial stretch quickly hardened into a homicide investigation.
Early reports said he had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and later court reporting said the coroner determined he had actually been shot seven times. His body was found miles away from his burned vehicle, a detail that gave the case an especially grim shape from the start and suggested that whoever killed him had tried to erase the trail afterward.
Police moved fast. By January 20, state police announced the arrest of Jancarlos Perez of Hazleton in Concepcion’s killing. The charges were broad and serious: criminal homicide, arson, criminal mischief, theft, tampering with or fabricating evidence, and receiving stolen property. Reporting at the time said Perez admitted being at the scene and admitted burning the vehicle, but he claimed another man was the shooter. Even so, public reporting located no later arrest of a second suspect in the case, and subsequent court coverage centered on Perez as the man prosecutors held responsible for the killing.
As the case moved deeper into court, prosecutors described a killing rooted in rivalry and betrayal. They argued Perez killed Concepcion, described in coverage as a rival in Hazleton’s drug scene and, in some accounts, a longtime friend or childhood friend, in order to eliminate competition. That framing turned the case from a roadside homicide into something even colder: a calculated act carried out against someone who had once been close to the accused. Court reporting also described the use of a stolen revolver, and the details that emerged painted the death as deliberate rather than impulsive.
The case ended not with a trial verdict, but with a guilty plea. In January 2017, Perez pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in Concepcion’s death and was immediately sentenced in Luzerne County Court to 20 to 40 years in prison. Reports said he admitted killing Concepcion, bringing the central question of who was responsible to a close even though the earlier suggestion of another gunman had surfaced at the beginning of the case. In the end, the official outcome was clear: there was an arrest, a prosecution, a guilty plea, and a lengthy prison sentence for the man authorities said killed Jose Alberto Concepcion and left him in that isolated industrial park while his car burned elsewhere in the dark.
