Nearly three and a half years after Juan Antonio Guerra-Torres’ mutilated body was found in Badger Basin, the criminal cases against the three people implicated in his murder have come to end.

Pedro Garcia Jr., the last to be sentenced, received a stipulated 25- to 40-year prison sentence at a Friday hearing before Fifth Judicial District Court Judge Steven Cranfill in Cody.

“I just want you all to know I’m sorry and I made some stupid choices in my life,” Garcia said. “Now I’ve got to deal with the consequences for the rest of my life, due to my drug addiction.”

The 30-year-old former Powell resident added that, after serving his time, “I promise to come back out a better man and a productive member of society.”

Garcia technically received the stiffest sentence of the three defendants for aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Fifty-three-year-old John Marquez, who prosecutors say actually killed and dismembered Guerra-Torres, received 25 to 35 years for second-degree murder; 29-year-old Sandra Garcia — Pedro Garcia’s sister and Guerra-Torres’ longtime partner — received 10 to 18 years for aiding and abetting manslaughter and for accessory after the fact to second-degree murder.

Second-degree murder means killing someone “purposely and maliciously,” but without premeditation. All three were initially charged with first-degree, or premeditated murder, but the charges were reduced in plea deals.

“The resolution that we received in this case obviously had the support of law enforcement, and I think the state’s satisfied with the sentences, based upon the complexity of the case,” said Park County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric.

Charging documents say Pedro Garcia recruited Marquez to commit the murder. Then, in early January 2014, Sandra Garcia drove Guerra-Torres to a pullout along Wyo. Highway 294 between Powell and Clark, where her brother and Marquez were waiting. Marquez shot and killed Guerra-Torres and, with Pedro Garcia’s help, brought the body up to a remote Bureau of Land Management road. There, Marquez severed Guerra-Torres’ head and hands with an ax, making the remains more difficult to identify.

It took authorities months to conclude it was Guerra-Torres’ body and more than a year to gather enough evidence to file charges.

In his statement to the court on Friday, Pedro Garcia began by apologizing to Guerra-Torres’ family members, who were not present and who have not been located by law enforcement.

“I know my apology won’t bring back their beloved son, brother or father; I also know that my apology won’t heal the wounds that have been left in their hearts,” Pedro Garcia said. “I just hope they all will forgive me one day for this.”

He also apologized to the people of Park County for putting fear into the community, for all the time and effort spent by law enforcement on the case and to his own family.

Garcia promised to complete programs to get some education and help with his addiction, telling his family he would “try to get out as quick as I can to come back to you all and be the father you deserve to have.”

Garcia’s court-appointed attorney, Angela Long of Sheridan, said the sentence was an appropriate resolution to the case.

“I think one thing that’s necessary to consider is that Mr. Garcia, when all these events were taking place, was under the influence of methamphetamine,” Long said in court. “That’s something he’s not proud of.”

Pedro Garcia told several different versions of how the murder was carried out and also said his memories from late 2013 and early 2014 were fuzzy from being “gacked out” on meth, investigators have testified.

Authorities first questioned Pedro Garcia about Guerra-Torres’ murder in May 2014, when they searched his Powell home and found multiple meth pipes and a small amount of apparent methamphetamine; five children were at the home, too.

In that initial interview, Pedro Garcia said Guerra-Torres was running drugs for a Tijuana-based cartel and guessed he was killed for stealing a load of methamphetamine.

Later, Pedro Garcia changed his story and implicated Sandra Garcia — saying his sister must have helped drug dealers from California murder Torres while Pedro Garcia and other family members ate dinner in Belfry, Montana.

Meanwhile, an unnamed informant would later tell authorities a different story from Pedro Garcia. In the version reportedly told to the informant, Pedro Garcia said he and Marquez confronted Guerra-Torres about his drug debt and for abusing Sandra Garcia; according to that account, the encounter — supposedly at a home in Clark — culminated in Marquez shooting Guerra-Torres.

Prosecutors held off until March 2015, when they charged Pedro Garcia and his wife with child endangering for having meth in their Powell home a year earlier. Armed with warrants for those charges (which prosecutors eventually dropped), officers with the Park County Sheriff’s Office and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation had Pedro Garcia arrested in Georgia.

It was under questioning there that he finally admitted to playing a role in the murder: Pedro Garcia said his sister asked him to kill Guerra-Torres because drug dealers in Mexico were threatening their family over tens of thousands of dollars of debt; to help his sister out, Pedro Garcia said he hired Marquez for a small amount of meth and cash.

That’s the version of the story that the Park County Attorney’s Office adopted, charging the three in connection with Guerra-Torres’ murder.

However, given the deals that were ultimately reached — and from the brief accounts that Sandra Garcia and Marquez gave in court — it appears prosecutors no longer believe that’s exactly what happened.

Rather than being the instigator of the murder, Sandra Garcia testified her role was agreeing to bring Guerra-Torres to a meeting with her brother and Marquez, despite knowing he might “be in danger of physical harm.”

Marquez, meanwhile, indicated he was misled about why he was being asked to kill Guerra-Torres; he testified he’d been told his own son and grandchildren, along with Pedro Garcia’s parents, were in danger.

“Obviously the investigation continued after these individuals were charged in a very complex case,” Skoric said Friday of the apparent change in the narrative of the case. He declined to talk in detail about the investigation, noting the sentences could still be appealed.

Garcia had been represented by Cody attorney Nick Beduhn from his initial 2014 interview with law enforcement until last month, when the Wyoming Supreme Court suspended Beduhn’s law license for undisclosed reasons.

Garcia took a moment Friday to complain about Beduhn’s lack of communication during the case.

“I felt like he kind of abandoned me there for a while,” Garcia said. While wanting to proceed with the plea deal, “I just wish that Mr. Beduhn would have been, I guess, more there for me as an attorney than he was,” Garcia said.

At the end of the sentencing hearing, Garcia and some of his family members in the courtroom became upset when detention center deputies would not allow him to hug his daughter.

Earlier, Long noted that Garcia’s father died while his case was pending.

“It’s been a hard amount of time for him to sit — not just because of the amount of time, but because of the events that have happened with his family,” she said.

The more than two years Pedro Garcia has served in jail since his arrest in Georgia will count toward his prison sentence.