Police bodycam footage recorded in the early hours of June 8, 2025, captured defendant Alfredo Moreno telling Officer Brandon Ontiveros, “I told her nicely to leave. I don’t want to fight. There’s her blood inside my house, there’s proof.”
Moments after Ontiveros searched his residence, Moreno’s demeanor switched.
“I don’t beat anybody that don’t deserve it,” Moreno said during his arrest.
Sixty-year-old Alfredo Moreno received a 30-year prison sentence on April 23, 2026, after jurors found him guilty of assault-family violence with impeding breath or circulation.
Moreno appeared in the 154th Lamb County District Court for the incident that occurred back in June of 2025. Prosecutors vehemently argued the status of Moreno and the victim’s relationship, and Moreno’s intent to strangle her.
“I wanted (the jurors) to know that it was a very straightforward case regarding assault and strangulation,” Ryuki Hirasawa, the assistant Lamb County District Attorney, said. “I wanted them to pay very close attention to the statements that were captured on the body camera recordings (made) by the defendant … the defendant was angry because the victim was withholding herself.”
Simple assault is a Class A misdemeanor; however, if the offense happens against someone with whom the defendant has or had a dating relationship with, and the offense is committed by intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly impeding the breathing or circulation of the blood by applying pressure to the person’s throat or neck or by blocking the person’s nose or mouth; the offense becomes a third- degree felony.
Moreover, if the defendant has previously been convicted of an offense, punishment enhancements are added to the sentence.
Prior to the June 2025 incident, Moreno was convicted of felony offenses, including kidnapping in November 2005 and again in April 2013 for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
In December of 2024, Moreno and the victim, Belinda Ramirez, began dating. Ramirez admitted that the relationship was on-andoff, but by June of 2025, the two were back together.
On the night of the incident on June 7, 2025, Moreno asked the victim, Belinda Ramirez, if she was interested in some pig meat he obtained from one he had killed earlier that day. Ramirez said that after Moreno brought the meat in the evening, he asked her to stay the night with him at his residence.
Just past midnight on June 8, Ramirez said she and Moreno arrived at his place. While there, Ramirez said they drank beers, but she only consumed half of hers.
Ramirez said that she asked Moreno to shower, and he expected her to do the same, asking her for sexual relations in the process.
Initially, Ramirez waited for Moreno to finish so she could shower with hot water. However, Ramirez testified that she decided not to shower because she did not want to have sexual relations with Moreno.
Upset after finishing his shower and seeing Ramirez still on the bed, Moreno asked Ramirez for sex again, “I thought we were gonna do that,” Moreno said to Ramirez.
After Ramirez denied consent once more, Moreno grabbed the beer cans near the bed and threw them in the toilet. Then, he grabbed Ramirez by the ankles and dragged her off the bed.
“I’m tired of this,” Moreno told Ramirez.
When Moreno dragged Ramirez off the bed, she hit her back, a sensation she said she felt in her gut.
Notably, Ramirez testified that only her back made impact with the ground, not any other part of her body.
From the bedroom floor, Moreno dragged Ramirez through the hallway and toward the entrance of the home. Moreno demanded that Ramirez leave, but she wanted to retrieve her items from the bedroom and leave through the French doors located in the same room.
Then, Ramirez said she saw a yellow extension cord pass in front of her face and felt it hit her chin. She fell on her back and felt the cord pull back against her neck.
“I saw the yellow; there was no question it was the extension cord,” Ramirez recounted. “It felt like strangulation. I couldn’t breathe.”
On a scale of one to ten, Ramirez described the pressure as a 10, and experienced difficulty breathing.
In a forceful, profaneriddeled manner, Moreno continued to strangle Ramirez from behind and demanded she leave his home.
“In my mind, I was thinking, ‘This is not happening, I’m not gonna die,’” Ramirez said.
Attempting to move her body in the same direction as Moreno, Ramirez tried to get a hold of the cord.
Moreno dragged her to the utility room near the entrance before eventually loosening the cord’s grip. Ramirez remembered blacking out momentarily before she turned to face Moreno.
As she turned, she felt the cord strike against the right side of her head from behind.
“It felt and sounded like an explosion went off in my head,” Ramirez testified.
Failing to render any aid, Ramirez said Moreno showed no remorse for her pain and continued to shout expletives at her.
Thereafter, Ramirez darted to the bedroom to retrieve her phone and locked herself in the bathroom to dial 911.
At approximately 1:20 a. m., Littlefield Officer Brandon Ontiveros received a domestic in-progress call. Dispatch reported hearing muffling during the call and provided Ontiveros with Moreno’s name.
Already patrolling near Moreno’s residence, Ontiveros and accompanying officer Gabriel Garcia witnessed Moreno’s dodge ram truck leave through East 11th Street. Garcia activated his patrol lights and pulled Moreno over on Harral Avenue.
Ontiveros’s testimony detailed identifying Moreno on the driver’s side and a distressed and bloody Ramirez in the passenger seat.
During the State’s presentation of Ontiveros’s bodycam footage, the video captures various initial claims made by Moreno, including him stating he asked Ramirez to leave and that there is more proof at his house.
When officers approached Ramirez, she initially remained unable to communicate. However, she eventually told officers about the strangulation and noted the yellow extension cord Moreno used.
Based on his demeanor, the side comments and after confirming his name, Ontiveros said he then detained Moreno.
While in the back of Ontiveros’s patrol truck, Moreno waived his rights and agreed to talk to Ontiveros. Moreno claimed Ramirez ‘got stupid’ after they drank and would not leave after being asked.
“ If you don’t remove yourself, I’m going to remove you,” Moreno explained to Ontiveros.
Then, Moreno stated that Ramirez may have ‘bumped her head at the front door’ and then said she dropped herself near the front door.
As Ramirez received medical treatment from EMS, Ontiveros returned to Moreno’s residence and searched the home. Upon his search, Ontiveros located blood spatter in the utility room, on the carpet outside the bathroom, and pieces of toilet paper covered in blood left in the bathroom sink and on the floor of the utility room.
Additionally, Ontiveros located the yellow extension cord identified by Ramirez.
Once Ontiveros confronted Moreno with the extension cord, Moreno’s demeanor shifted, and so did his story.
“I pulled it out from under her,” Moreno said. “I guess it whipped her in the back of the head.”
Ramirez’s head wound produced a laceration of less than a centimeter, and paramedics identified redness on her neck. Gayla Gonzalez, a Littlefield paramedic who responded to the call, said initial redness from strangulation is common, and darker bruising is not visible right away.
“Falling on the floor alone could not cause that,” Gonzalez testified in court. “ A significant puncture caused the wound.”
Moreover, Gonzalez noted Ramirez’s complaints about having trouble swallowing and breathing, both symptoms Gonzalez said are common when the blood and air supply is cut off.
Resting the State’s case, Hirasawa presented an analogy to jurors explaining how one may prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.
If an individual goes to sleep and wakes up the next morning to snow on their lawn, it is reasonable to assume it snowed overnight, despite not witnessing the snowfall themselves.
With that analogy, Hirasawa urged jurors to consider Ramirez’s story.
“Who do you believe? Her? Or the defendant, who kept changing his story,” Hirasawa said.
Contrastingly, Moreno’s defense attorney, Chase Stewart, argued for the lesser offense of assault, not including strangulation.
“I debated whether to give a closing argument today,” Stewart said. “We know Ramirez was assaulted, a bloody mess. I believe there is insufficient evidence to convict on strangulation.”
Closing out their statements, Lamb County District Attorney Rickie Redman picked up the extension cord and dropped it, causing a sound that ricocheted in the courtroom as it slammed against the surface.
Further, Redman reiterated Moreno’s insistence on receiving what he felt he was owed from Ramirez.
“A man decided he was gonna have sex with her because he brought her some pork,” Redman said. “‘I’m in my house, this is my woman, she didn’t give me what I want, now I’m mad.’” Jurors deliberated for thirty-one minutes before delivering the guilty verdict.
Before jurors decided on Moreno’s sentencing, Stewart quoted William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” to argue for the minimum punishment.
“Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy,” Stewart said. “That is why we cry for mercy.”
Transversely, Redman referenced a bible verse to reiterate Moreno’s past behaviors.
“‘Not one of us is good; we’ve all fallen short in the glory of God,’” Redman said. “As I stand here, I’m seeing the life of a 60-yearold man that hasn’t even tried. There is another time and entity Moreno can take that up with.”
Deliberating for thirty-two minutes, jurors sentenced Moreno to thirty years in prison.
For members of the Lamb County community, Redman said Moreno’s conviction sends a clear message about the strong stance taken against abusers.
“About half of Texans will experience some form of domestic violence, and it’s something that’s more prevalent than people like to realize,” Redman said. “It’s something that often happens behind closed doors and is very taboo for people to talk about or deal with. This is something that often happens in secret, but it has lifelong impacts on the people involved: their children, their families, and our community.”
Nonetheless, Redman emphasized the importance of handling cases like this with care and consideration of the victim in mind.
“One of the things that’s really important to us as prosecutors and the way we handle our cases is that no matter how I feel or how our community would feel on behalf of the State, it’s something that happened to (the victim),” Redman said. “ There have been times where we, as the State, want to pursue criminal charges when a victim does not. We always try to give (them) a voice in the process and educate them about what’s going to happen in the case.”