Fort Worth man gets 30 years for DWI murder

FORT WORTH -- A habitual drunken driver has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder in a Hurst traffic death of a 4-year-old girl in a crash where he was again driving while intoxicated.

Toxicology reports show that the 33-year-old Fort Worth man registered a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.27, more than three times the legal limit, at the time of the March 14 accident that killed Kaitlyn Sanchez of Haltom City. Under Texas law, someone with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 is considered intoxicated.

Marcial J. Ortega was sentenced on Friday in Criminal District Court No. 213 in Fort Worth after pleading guilty to murder and driving while intoxicated.

According to Tarrant County criminal court records, Ortega had two misdemeanor DWI convictions in 1999 and one felony DWI conviction in 2002, for which he was sentenced to three years in prison. He served nine months, according to court records.

Under the Texas Penal Code, a defendant can be charged with murder if while committing a felony, he performs an act “clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.”

Seeking a murder charge -- and getting a conviction -- for a felony DWI is rare, but it has been successfully done in Tarrant County. The first time was in a 2004 case prosecuted by Tarrant County assistant district attorneys Richard Alpert and Mollee Westfall, who is now a state district judge.

Investigators said they believe that Ortega was driving a Chevrolet truck that hit Octavio Sanchez’s Ford station wagon about 9 p.m. on March 14 in the 100 block of Loop 820 near the Airport Freeway merge in Hurst.

Kaitlyn Sanchez was riding inside the station wagon, her father said in a previous interview. Kaitlyn was in a booster seat and secured by a seat belt in the back of the station wagon, police said.

Octavio Sanchez said in the previous interview that the man who struck his car “smelled a lot of alcohol.”

Kaitlyn was pronounced dead at a Fort Worth hospital shortly after the accident. Her 10-year-old sister suffered minor elbow injuries, her father said.

Initially, Ortega was charged with manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on conviction.

On the murder charge, Ortega had faced up to life in prison if convicted.

According to public records, Ortega has a lengthy criminal history, including: