A Third District judge on Thursday ordered Matthiaz Centre Lauti Ioane-Register to stand trial in the Father's Day 2025 shooting at WestFest in Centennial Park. An 8-month-old boy, a pregnant woman and an 18-year-old were killed. Ioane-Register, 16 that day and 18 at the preliminary hearing, did not testify.
KSL reported that Judge Stephen Nelson ordered him to stand trial on four counts of aggravated murder and ten felony counts of discharging a firearm. His attorneys entered not-guilty pleas to every charge.
What the judge left standing
The firearm counts, as KSL described the bindover, are five first-degree felonies for discharge causing serious injury, two second-degree felonies for discharge causing injury, and three third-degree felonies for discharge of a firearm. Prosecutors added one second-degree felony at Thursday's hearing.
Defense lawyers asked Nelson to dismiss five discharge counts tied to shots that hit Hassan Lugundi, calling them duplicative, and argued it was unknown which of those shots contributed to his death. They also asked that one serious-injury count be reduced, saying that wound caused neither permanent disfigurement nor a substantial risk of death. Nelson rejected the argument that those firearm charges should be dismissed.
The four aggravated-murder counts track the three people who were killed and the fetus of the pregnant woman who was killed, Deseret News reported when the adult case was filed in June 2025. KSL reported then that the 16-year-old had been charged as an adult that Friday with four counts of aggravated murder.
A carnival Sunday, and who died
The shooting was June 15, 2025, at Centennial Park. Anderson Garcia Cabrera Jr., 8 months old, died at Primary Children's Hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. Fnu Reena, 41 and eight weeks pregnant, died at a hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. Hassan Lugundi was 18.
An autopsy found that multiple gunshot wounds to Lugundi could have been fatal. Accounts of how many times he was shot do not match. KSL's hearing report said he was shot six times. East Idaho News, citing the autopsy in its June 2025 report, said he was shot five times, and that Reena and the infant were each shot once in the head.
Prosecutors have described Ioane-Register as a known gang member and said he was associated with Lugundi, whom they described as a friend of rival gang members. He is alleged to have been targeting Lugundi. In an interview, according to KSL's account of the hearing, he did not report being in any arguments or fights and did not say anyone had pointed a weapon at him. Detective Erwin Manriquez testified that Ioane-Register said he knew what he was shooting at and had not shot a baby.
Two teenagers, and the officer who ran toward the shots
West Valley City officers testified, along with two people shot in the arm. Aiden Jaquez was 15. Brianna Lucio was 17. Both had surgery to remove bullets from their arms. Both said they still occasionally feel pain.
Officer David Hagues testified that he heard sounds like nearby gunfire, saw Ioane-Register firing and ran toward him. He fired one round south and away while running toward the defendant, and said he fired to avoid hitting innocent people. A detective testified that Hagues's bullet was found in a sign for a carnival ride.
Hagues reported that between 10 and 15 people staffed WestFest that Sunday. He suggested more officers should staff the event because of prior fights involving teenagers.
Twelve rounds, and a count that still differs
At the hearing, investigators' account was that 13 shell casings were found: one attributed to Hagues's gun and 12 to a Taurus dropped by Ioane-Register. The Taurus holds 12 bullets and had none left when it was dropped. KSL's account of the hearing said Ioane-Register fired 12 shots. A June 2025 KSL report had said police recovered 12 shell casings at the scene. John Wells is a detective in West Valley City's homicide unit; the hearing coverage does not assign him every piece of that ballistics testimony.
Those casing counts, and the five-shot versus six-shot accounts of Lugundi's wounds, remain conflicting reports. Nothing in the available reporting resolves them, and nothing in it establishes a later verdict. What Thursday did establish is narrower, and final enough for now: not-guilty pleas are in, the firearm counts Nelson was asked to throw out are still in, and the case over three people and a fetus goes to trial.
