Gabriel Sanchez II was a 19-year-old Hispanic/Latino man from San Antonio, Texas, who loved to make people laugh. His family, who called him "Noono," remembered him as a character who was lyrical with his words and would create his own raps. He loved to dance, especially to Michael Jackson. His mother, Jassidy Sanchez, said her son was taken from her too soon and that she would miss all of it.
At the time of his death, Gabriel was in a dating relationship with Sanaa Keilani McNeil, also 19.
On January 17, 2023, a housekeeper at the Travelodge By Wyndham on Interstate 35 North in San Antonio discovered the bodies of Gabriel and Sanaa in a hotel room. Both had been fatally shot. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined that both teenagers had died from multiple gunshot wounds, and their deaths were ruled homicides.
The investigation quickly focused on surveillance footage from the hotel. The video showed that just after midnight on January 16, Gabriel had returned to the hotel accompanied by another man. This man, described as heavy-set and wearing a white Nike coat, was later identified as 19-year-old Kristian Ray Belmudez. Throughout the early morning hours, Gabriel, Sanaa, and Belmudez were seen leaving and returning to the room together. At one point, around 1:30 a.m., they were captured on video at a nearby QuikTrip gas station, where a witness said he met Gabriel for a drug transaction. Back at the hotel, at 3:39 a.m., cameras recorded Belmudez leaving the couple's room alone. He was seen carrying a handgun in each hand and a backpack before running toward a stairwell and out the back door.
On March 10, 2023, authorities arrested Kristian Belmudez and charged him with two counts of capital murder. In a surprising turn, the charges were dismissed on June 7, 2023, due to what the district attorney's office called insufficient evidence, and Belmudez was released from jail. However, just one week later, on June 14, Belmudez was re-arrested for the same crimes. The new arrest was based on additional evidence, including an interview in which Belmudez admitted he was the person seen with the victims in the QuikTrip surveillance video.
Following his re-arrest, the case against Kristian Belmudez proceeded. He was ultimately convicted for the murders of Gabriel Sanchez and Sanaa McNeil. In January 2026, Belmudez was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
