Armando Vicente Chilel Lopez, a 31-year-old Hispanic / Latino male from Georgetown, Delaware, was killed on the evening of January 22, 2022, after violence erupted inside El Nopalito Restaurant on DuPont Boulevard. Police said Georgetown officers and Delaware State Police were called to the restaurant at about 7:28 p.m. for a report that two people had been shot.
What began as a disturbance inside the business had spilled into something far more deliberate: a group of men had reportedly been asked to leave earlier in the night because of disorderly behavior and a dispute with other patrons, only for two masked men to return to the restaurant soon afterward.
According to police and later court accounts, the returning men entered the crowded restaurant wearing masks and dark clothing. One of them approached a patron identified in later reports as Seferino “Frank” Garza and ripped a necklace from his neck. As the robbery unfolded and the men tried to flee, gunfire broke out in the dining area. Armando Chilel Lopez was struck and taken to Nanticoke Hospital, where he died from his injuries. Honorio Velasquez, 28, of Bridgeville, was also shot and was pronounced dead at the scene.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators focused on the men who had left the restaurant and the vehicle believed to have carried them away. Delaware State Police publicly sought information about a gray pickup truck with an extended cab that fled after the shooting. Within days, investigators identified two Georgetown brothers, Yony Morales-Garcia and Emner Morales-Garcia, as suspects. Both were arrested in connection with the double homicide, and early reports said they faced murder, robbery, conspiracy, and related felony charges.
The case later narrowed in different directions for the two brothers. Prosecutors alleged that Emner Morales-Garcia was the man who stole the jewelry, while Yony Morales-Garcia was the shooter. Emner eventually accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to robbery and conspiracy charges. A later Cape Gazette report said the murder charges against Emner were dropped because prosecutors could not prove he planned or participated in the shooting itself, and he was serving a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree robbery and conspiracy.
Yony Morales-Garcia's path through court was more complicated. His first trial ended in a hung jury in December 2023, when jurors could not unanimously decide whether he had participated in the robbery and killings. Prosecutors retried him, and in May 2024 a jury convicted him on 17 charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, first-degree robbery, first-degree conspiracy, reckless endangering, aggravated menacing, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, and wearing a disguise during the commission of a felony. In July 2024, he was sentenced to two life terms plus 97 years in prison.
That conviction did not remain final. In February 2026, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed Yony Morales-Garcia's convictions and sent the case back to Superior Court for a new trial. The court found that prosecutors had improperly referred to Emner Morales-Garcia's guilty plea during Yony's trial, including in opening statements and through detective testimony, creating a risk that jurors would treat Emner's plea as evidence against Yony. As of that ruling, the case against Yony Morales-Garcia was remanded for further proceedings rather than standing as a final murder conviction.
