A Galveston County jury on Thursday sentenced Rigoberto Argueta-Sontay to 35 years in prison after finding him guilty of murdering his roommate and partner, Alberto Guzman Brito. The fatal stabbing happened in July 2025 inside a League City home on the 2800 block of Brookmist Lane, where officers later found Guzman Brito suffering multiple stab wounds. Jurors deliberated for about an hour before returning the guilty verdict.
According to the League City Police Department, officers were called to a disturbance at the house and detained Argueta-Sontay near the bedroom the two men shared. A January 2025 departmental briefing noted that detectives and crime scene teams processed the residence and that the Galveston County Criminal District Attorney accepted a murder charge. Investigators documented those early findings in an arrest report that prosecutors later leaned on at trial.
What jurors heard
During the trial, prosecutors presented crime scene photographs, autopsy evidence and a recorded interview in which Argueta-Sontay gave several conflicting accounts of what happened. Two other roommates who lived in the home told investigators they saw Argueta-Sontay stabbing Guzman Brito, and investigators say he later admitted to cutting Guzman Brito's throat. Dr. Erin Barnhart of the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office testified that Guzman Brito suffered a punctured lung, a severe abdominal wound and a neck injury that severed his trachea and major blood vessels. The jury rejected Argueta-Sontay's self-defense claim and returned a guilty verdict before imposing the 35-year sentence, as reported by Click2Houston.
How 'sudden passion' could have changed the punishment
At the punishment stage, defense attorneys asked jurors to consider a "sudden passion" finding, a legal theory that can reduce the punishment range even after a murder conviction. Under Texas law, "sudden passion" is decided during the punishment phase: if a defendant proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the death occurred "under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause," the offense can be treated as a second-degree felony with a lower sentencing range, according to the Texas Penal Code §19.02. That framework helps explain why defendants sometimes pursue the issue even after jurors have already returned a guilty verdict.
The Galveston County Criminal District Attorney’s Office publicly thanked the jury, the League City Police Department and the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office for their work on the case, per Click2Houston. Argueta-Sontay will serve his sentence in state prison while any appeals or further filings move through the court system.
