A Riverdale man was ordered to spend the next 50 years behind bars for shooting his former roommate in a jealous rage over a woman.
A Prince George’s County judge sentenced Angel Barrera-Arevalo, 32, to life in prison, suspending all but 50 years. Barrera-Arevalo was convicted of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of Jose Amaya, 26, after he found Amaya with the mother of his two young daughters.
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After his arrest, prosecutors said Barrera-Arevalo penned a letter from his jail cell to the woman, Lizjeivy Arriaga-Herrera, 20, threatening her and any man who tried to come between them, prosecutors said.
“A love triangle is a problem; love is good between two, because when there is love among three there are always deaths, and if someone else dares to come across your path, I feel sorry for you and for him because he’s going to die,” Barrera-Arevalo wrote.
On May 31, 2008, police said, Barrera-Arevalo confronted Amaya and Arriaga-Herrera outside a Hyattsville home while they were picking up her girls. Barrera-Arevalo pulled a gun from his waistband and shot Amaya in the chest. Arriaga-Herrera pushed the gunman away and he fled, police said.
When Prince George’s County police officers arrived, both the gunman and the woman were gone.
While police searched for the shooter, Barrera-Arevalo left voicemail messages on Amaya’s cell phone warning him not to “touch a hair on that woman’s head” and challenging the victim to drop the charges so that they could “face each other like men.” Barrera-Arevalo said he had not “finished Amaya off” that day because of his sympathy for the victim’s sickly father.
At his trial, Barrera-Arevalo said he did not write the jail letter and claimed that the voicemail messages on the Amaya’s phone were from someone else. He denied knowing Arriaga-Herrera or the two girls.
Prosecutors pointed out that he was seen playing with the girls who called him “papa.” They also said Arriaga-Herrera and the girls visited him 23 times in jail, according to the visitor log.
He offered no explanation.
