North Little Rock man is sentenced to 40 years in prison for homicide

File photo
File photo

A 29-year-old North Little Rock man has accepted a 40-year prison sentence for killing a man and threatening his girlfriend with a gun in separate incidents.

Ever Saul Rodas-Urbina pleaded guilty before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Cathi Compton to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, for the May shooting death of 32-year-old Julio Cesar Ramos in Little Rock and terroristic threatening for the April 2021 attack on 31-year-old Ada Salgado at the North Little Rock home the couple shared, sentencing papers filed last week show. Rodas-Urbina's sentence was negotiated by senior prosecutor Barbara Mariani and public defender Bret Qualls.

Ramos was found fatally wounded on May 2 at the mobile-home park at 8510 Scott Hamilton Drive in front of the trailer of Rodas-Urbina's sister, Paoli Rodas. Rodas said she heard shots, walked outside and found Ramos wounded. Police said Ramos had been shot four times, in the chest, groin, thigh and leg.

Another sister, Carmen Yolanda Rodas, who owned the trailer, told police she'd gotten a Facebook message from her brother, stating that he'd found messages between his girlfriend and Ramos and that he was going to kill them, according to an arrest affidavit.

Salgado, Rodas-Urbina's girlfriend, told police the day after the killing she was afraid of him and knew him to carry a revolver. She said he had confronted her the night before about Ramos, telling her, "Tomorrow 'Ramos' dies and I'll be back for you," using a nickname for Ramos, Colas, the affidavit states.

Salgado played a recording of Rodas-Urbina from the day after the killing, stating "I just killed your Colas. Go pick him up if you want to," according to the affidavit.

Rodas-Urbina was arrested the day after Ramos was killed, with authorities discovering when he was taken into custody that he was wanted on a domestic-violence warrant from North Little Rock police. He pleaded guilty to the terrorist-threatening charge from that case, an April 3, 2021, incident in which Rodas-Urbina held a gun to Salgado's head and threatened to kill her while she was holding the couple's one-year-old daughter.

According to police reports, Salgado had been trying to break up with Rodas-Urbina and make him leave her house. When he wouldn't leave, she tried to take the couple's daughter and get away when he accosted her with the gun. She said he let her go and she went to the police but Rodas-Urbina was gone when police arrived.

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