Javier Flores, a 29-year-old Hispanic male, had been out of jail for less than two days before his life was cut short on December 6, 2018. On that Thursday afternoon in Pasco, Washington, Flores was at a house on West Yakima Street with a woman named Briselda Carrazco when two men arrived looking for him and another individual over a purported $1,000 debt.
One of the men, Jerry Dean Porter, had reportedly sent a Facebook message inquiring about Flores and the money owed to him.
Porter visited the house twice that day, and on his second visit, he was joined by his roommate, Anthony Delinio Hamilton. An argument erupted, during which Hamilton expressed frustration and burst into the bedroom where Flores was. The confrontation escalated, and Hamilton pulled out a handgun, shooting Flores point-blank in the throat. As Hamilton and Porter fled the scene, Hamilton turned and fired three more shots, striking Carrazco. A call to 911 captured the chaos, with dispatchers hearing someone in the background screaming, "I'm going to die" and "my leg hurts." Javier Flores died at the scene.
Later that evening, the Tri-City Regional SWAT team located and arrested both Hamilton and Porter at a nearby residence. In the ensuing legal proceedings, Anthony Delinio Hamilton pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree assault. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, which included a mandatory five-year term for the use of a firearm. Jerry Dean Porter, who was accused of being an accomplice, went to trial and was found guilty of first-degree rendering criminal assistance for driving Hamilton away from the scene. He was acquitted of the more serious charges of murder and attempted murder and received a sentence of two years and five months in prison. The tragic event left the family of Javier Flores with what his sister described as a "life sentence" of loss.
