Mario Murillo, a 28-year-old White/Caucasian man from Marshalltown, Iowa, was killed in the early hours of April 19, 2024, in a shooting at a residence at 2645 182nd Street north of Marshalltown. Marshall County deputies were sent to the home at about 1:45 a.m. after a caller requested a welfare check on his brother, whom he had not heard from since the previous afternoon. The caller later went to the property and reported seeing blood outside.
When deputies arrived, they found Murillo and Frances Tillie Gasca dead at the scene. Investigators observed multiple shell casings and other evidence indicating that both victims had been shot and that whoever was responsible had already left.
According to the criminal complaint and later court testimony, Murillo and Gasca had been at the residence with several other people during the hours before the shooting. An eyewitness told investigators that Ilias Julian Lasley, of Ankeny, arrived at the house with other people sometime after 9:30 p.m. The witness said tensions developed after Lasley became upset while Murillo, Gasca and another person were speaking Spanish. Murillo and Gasca eventually walked outside toward Murillo's truck. The witness alleged that Lasley followed them, stood near the front of the truck, drew a handgun and began firing. The witness saw Gasca fall before fleeing the scene. Investigators later determined that both Murillo and Gasca had suffered seven gunshot wounds, and authorities recovered 14 cartridge cases from the area.
The investigation quickly focused on Lasley. Authorities obtained arrest warrants charging him with two counts of first-degree murder, one for Murillo's death and one for Gasca's. Lasley was arrested in Des Moines on April 20, the day after the bodies were discovered, and was taken into custody. His cash-only bond was initially set at $1 million. Prosecutors later added two counts of dominion or control of a firearm by a felon, both felony weapons charges. Lasley pleaded not guilty, and the case remained pending for roughly two years as the parties prepared for trial.
When the case finally went before a Marshall County jury in May 2026, the prosecution argued that Lasley had become angry over the Spanish-language conversation, followed Murillo and Gasca outside and intentionally fired at them. Prosecutors relied on eyewitness testimony, physical evidence from the scene, Lasley's statements to investigators and evidence concerning the firearms and cartridge cases. The defense presented a substantially different account. Lasley's attorneys argued that another person also fired a gun that night and that Lasley reacted because he believed he was being shot at. The defense specifically suggested that Raul Ricardo "Indio" Mares Rodriguez, who lived at the residence, was the second shooter. Testimony was also presented about a strained relationship involving Gasca and Mares Rodriguez and about Murillo's relationship with Gasca, which the defense used in an effort to establish an alternative explanation for the gunfire.
Lasley himself testified during the trial. He acknowledged firing a gun seven times but said he had been trying to shoot at Mares Rodriguez rather than Murillo or Gasca. He testified that he learned during the trial that the shots he fired had struck Gasca. Another person who was inside the house testified that he heard arguing followed by two separate groupings of gunshots, testimony the defense cited in support of its contention that more than one person fired a weapon. Prosecutors rejected the defense theory and maintained that the evidence showed Lasley was responsible for the fatal shooting.
The jury returned a mixed verdict on May 22, 2026. Lasley was found not guilty of murdering Murillo. He was therefore acquitted of the homicide charge specifically connected to Murillo's death. The same jury found him guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder in Gasca's death and guilty of both felon-in-possession firearm charges. The differing verdicts meant that, despite Lasley's arrest and prosecution for both killings, no one was convicted of Murillo's homicide at the conclusion of the trial.
Lasley's attorneys later asked for a new trial, arguing in part that the verdicts were inconsistent and that the evidence supported their claim that Lasley was not the only shooter. At a July 10, 2026 sentencing hearing, Judge Bethany Currie rejected the request, finding that the jury had reached its decisions based on the evidence and that Lasley was not entitled to a new trial. He was sentenced on the second-degree murder conviction and firearm offenses to sentences running concurrently, leaving him facing a maximum of 50 years in prison and a minimum period reported as 35 years before release eligibility under the sentence imposed. That punishment was tied to his conviction for Gasca's killing and the firearms offenses, not to Murillo's death because the jury had acquitted him on Murillo's murder count.
As a result, the investigation produced an arrest and a full murder prosecution connected to Murillo's killing, but it did not end with a conviction for his death. Lasley was the principal suspect identified and charged by authorities, yet the jury's acquittal legally cleared him of the murder charge involving Murillo. The defense's assertion that there was a second shooter became a central issue at trial, but the publicly available reports do not show that another person has been arrested or charged with killing Murillo. His death therefore remains without a murder conviction despite the extensive investigation, arrest, trial and related convictions arising from the same shooting.
