A man who murdered two Powell residents decades ago says the financial penalties imposed alongside his life sentences are stretching his prison budget. However, a judge said last month that 67-year-old Ascension “Chon” Gonzales Pena must keep making the payments.

Gonzales killed his wife, Yesena “Jessie” Gonzales Mancha Fierro, and her brother, Manuel Alonzo Mancha Fierro, in July 1996, when he was 39 years old.

According to past Tribune reporting, Chon Gonzales murdered 22-year-old Yesena after she announced she was going to leave him; when Mancha Fierro heard gunshots and went to check on her, Gonzales used his AK-47 to kill the 28-year-old man, too.

Gonzales then fled his trailer southeast of Powell and left the country, spending some time in Mexico. He remained at large for more than four years — altering his fingerprints and face and living under the name of “Benjamin Galvez Rendon,” the Tribune reported. However, “Rendon” was eventually arrested and imprisoned for delivering meth in Colorado, and in early 2001, authorities got a tip that the inmate was actually Gonzales.

He was extradited back to Cody and a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in connection with Yesena’s killing, and second-degree murder in connection with Mancha Fierro’s.

Then-District Court Judge John Perry imposed two consecutive life sentences in September 2002, according to the Tribune’s past reporting. Former employers described Gonzales as “an honest and reliable” farmhand, but Perry said the murders and flight from law enforcement had “erased all the good acts” of the defendant’s past.

Along with some standard fees, the judge also ordered Gonzales to pay over $7,300 in restitution to cover the costs that Park County authorities incurred in bringing him to justice. As of a year ago, Gonzales still owed $3,635.03, but he asked the Park County District Court to mark his debt as paid in full.

Because of his outstanding debt, he said the State of Wyoming takes $12.50 out of his $50 prison stipend each month.

Gonzales is among a group of Wyoming inmates who are being temporarily housed at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility — a privately owned, maximum security prison in Tutwiler, Mississippi. And Gonzales said “there is no work here, no hobbies and the cost of hygiene goods are triple to quadruple what they are in Wyoming.”

“I am past the age of retirement, have no source of income and have diligently paid for the past 22 years,” Gonzales wrote in a February letter, asking the court to “find it in your heart to end this portion of my penalization.”

However, District Court Judge Bill Simpson couldn’t find it in the law. At a June 20 hearing, Simpson agreed with the prosecution and ruled that Gonzalez was a couple decades too late to request a sentence modification; such requests must be filed within a year of sentencing.

“Notwithstanding whether he [Gonzales] has a good reason, it doesn’t matter,” said Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Hatfield. “This court has no authority to grant the relief that the defendant is seeking.”

Simpson concurred. However, the judge indicated he wouldn’t finalize his ruling until getting a chance to explain it to Gonzales. The June 20 hearing was delayed while Hatfield was dealing with a matter in circuit court, and by the time it began, Gonzales had lost his phone connection from Mississippi.

Simpson indicated he would set another hearing that Gonzales could attend. The judge said he wants both Gonzales and prison officials to know his ruling, “so that we don’t continue to have mailings from him to the court that continue to cause issues for us ...”

If Gonzales continues to make payments of $12.50 a month, it would potentially take him another 20-plus years to satisfy his debt to the state.