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Bernardo "Benny" Mendez, 43, pleaded guilty to murdering Herbert Fetherolf at an abandoned Lubbock, Texas, apartment and was sentenced to 15 years on Thursday, October 19, 2023.

A contractor who maintains the Villa Del Norte Apartments reported finding a body in one of the apartments on the morning of Thursday, March 26, 2015. It was identified that day as Fetherolf, 51, known to his family as Pete. The complex, in the 1900 block of Baylor Street in north Lubbock, had been abandoned since a windstorm badly damaged it in 2013. It was condemned, and a court ordered it demolished in 2014. According to the arrest warrant, the apartment was trashed and Fetherolf had been dead for several days. Investigators later determined he was most likely killed on March 18, 2015. The Lubbock County medical examiner found multiple impacts to the head, several fractured ribs and defensive wounds on his hands, and ruled the death a homicide caused by blunt force trauma. The warrant states that Mendez caused the death by striking Fetherolf in the head with a hard object.

A witness who heard about the body told investigators Mendez had described an attack consistent with the death. According to the warrant as reported, Mendez laughed and bragged about "beating up an old man," said he hit him with a sink, and said he tried to clean up the scene and hide the sink. Reports of the warrant give the witness's account of the motive two ways: that the man "looked at his girl," or that the man had been insulting him. Police cited the medical examiner's findings and witness statements.

Mendez was 34 when police arrested him without incident at Tent City in East Lubbock on Tuesday, March 31, 2015. He was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center on a murder charge with no bond set and indicted by a Lubbock County grand jury about a month later. In a police interview in custody after the arrest, a detective tells Mendez that he is in custody, says investigators know he was at the Villa Del Norte apartments and asks what led to the altercation. Mendez answers that he was not involved and did nothing to the man. Texas prison records list an earlier two-year sentence for assault, imposed in Hale County in 2010.

Competency issues delayed the case for years. In March 2016, attorney Dan Hurley moved to have Mendez found incompetent, citing depression and bipolar disorder. Two months later, Mendez was committed to North Texas State Hospital's Vernon Campus. The commitment was extended in March 2017 and again in 2018, and he was later moved to Big Spring State Hospital. Psychologists there found his competency restored in June 2019, but after an April 2020 hearing he was committed again. In May 2021, a psychologist found him competent to stand trial, and neither side contested the finding.

Mendez entered his guilty plea before District Judge John McClendon in the 137th District Court in Lubbock County, telling the court he understood he was pleading guilty to killing Fetherolf at the abandoned apartment. The punishment range was five years to life. Under the plea agreement, the district attorney's office recommended 15 years, and the judge imposed it. By pleading guilty, Mendez gave up a potential insanity defense. Hurley said the men had argued and fought, that Mendez's mental illness, including a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, may have influenced his actions, and that he was remorseful.

Fetherolf's siblings gave victim impact statements by video. His sister said he used a walker and was days away from his 52nd birthday. Mendez had more than eight years of jail credit and must serve half of the sentence before parole eligibility. Texas Department of Criminal Justice records list the murder conviction, with an offence date of March 18, 2015, and a projected release date of March 29, 2030.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.