A man from Mission is headed to prison for 30 years. He was sentenced this month for a fatal beating at a stash house. The news outlet myrgv.com first reported the sentence on August 17, 2026. Its full report could not be reviewed for this story, since the site blocked access.
The headline details match a case El Tejano has tracked since 2024. That case is the stash house killing of Juan Carlos Hernandez De Leon in San Juan. We could not confirm from the sentencing report itself that this is the same case. But the location, the method, and the deadly outcome all point the same way. Here is what is known about that case.
The victim was 41 years old. Deputies say he went missing in early May 2024. Just days later, deputies say a group of men beat him with a hammer. The attack happened at a house in San Juan. It happened in the early morning hours of May 7, 2024.
Deputies say the men then put his body in a barrel. They buried it at a property in Edinburg. Investigators found the barrel about a week and a half later.
Six people were arrested in the case over several months. Two men, Jesus Grijalva and Samuel Uvalle Sr., were charged with murder. Each was held on a $5 million bond. A third man, Roberto Salas, also faced a murder charge. He was the last of the six suspects caught. Deputies arrested him in October 2024. That was months after they first named him a suspect.
Three more people faced charges tied to the case. Alejandro Cantu and Jennifer Jane Snider were charged with tampering with evidence. Deputies say Cantu used heavy equipment to help bury the body. They say Snider helped get rid of the victim's cell phone. A woman named Monica Victoria Gomez faced both a murder charge and an evidence tampering charge. Deputies say she also helped get rid of the phone.
Uvalle Sr. and Salas both had ties to Mission. Grijalva lived in San Juan, where the beating happened. In 2024, Grijalva was 43 years old. Uvalle Sr. was 47. Salas was 35.
El Tejano could not confirm which of these men got the 30 year sentence this month. We also could not confirm the exact charge, the court, the judge, or the sentencing date. El Tejano will update this story once more facts are confirmed.
Here is what court records and past news reports do show. A grand jury indicted Grijalva and Uvalle Sr. on murder charges in September 2024. A separate report from December 2024 said a Mission man was indicted in the case. That most likely refers to Salas, based on the timing of his October arrest, though we could not confirm this from the article itself. The case moved through Hidalgo County courts for more than two years before this month's sentencing.
Cases like this one are not rare in South Texas border towns. Stash houses tied to drug and human smuggling can turn violent when money or trust breaks down between the people running them. This case has ties to smuggling too. Deputies say Uvalle Sr.'s son, Samuel Uvalle Jr., was separately arrested on federal human smuggling charges around the same time as his father's case. Authorities say the son ran his own stash house. They say he had an AK-47 rifle.
For now, one man tied to this brutal killing is going to state prison. He will serve three decades. That is a long sentence. But it falls short of the top penalty for murder in Texas. That charge can carry a life sentence. The other cases remain open in Hidalgo County courts.
El Tejano will keep following this case. We will name the man once that is confirmed. We will also share his exact charge and the sentencing date. We will report all of it once we can verify it through court records.
