MISSION, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A man was sentenced for a 2021 crash in Mission that left a mother and daughter dead.
Esteban Cantu Jr. was sentenced Feb. 6 to 35 years in state jail on two counts of murder, according to Hidalgo County records.
Cantu signed a plea agreement where he pleaded guilty to the two murder charges. In exchange, six counts of smuggling of persons: likelihood serious bodily injury or death and two counts of evading arrest causing death were dismissed, records show.
According to previous ValleyCentral reports, Mission police responded to a major accident on Dec. 11, 202,1 in the area of West 2 Mile Line and Holland Road.
A news release stated that U.S. Border Patrol had requested assistance from Mission police and the Texas Department of Public Safety after a grey Ford Escape failed to yield.
Upon reaching the intersection, Cantu “failed to yield the right away” to a brown Honda occupied by 59-year-old Carmen Huerta Sosa and her daughter, 22-year-old Viridiana Charon Lloyd, police said.
The vehicles collided, killing both Sosa and Lloyd.
Cantu, who was 18 years old at the time of the crash, was transporting six migrants, police said.
As part of his sentencing, Cantu was given a jail credit of 418 days, records show.
