This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In the 12 years since he killed a man by shooting into a Salt Lake City home, former gang member Joseph L. Vigil has become a family man, owner of a successful company and, according to his defense attorney, "a pillar of the community."
Mario Christopher Vigil, who drove to and from the homicide scene, also is married, has children and his employers in South Salt Lake consider him a "trustworthy and dependable" worker.
That the April 23, 1995, murder of Oscar Herrera was only recently solved gave both men a decade to abandon their gang affiliations and turn their lives around.
But it also presented 3rd District Judge Randall Skanchy with a dilemma: Send them to prison or put them on probation?
"A human life was taken," said the judge, who in the end sentenced Joseph Vigil - who was only 16 years old at the time - to two years in jail, followed by probation.
Joseph Vigil, now 29, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and burglary, second-degree felonies punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
His uncle, 30-year-old Mario Vigil, who provided key information to police and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, was sentenced to one year in jail followed by probation.
Another relative involved in the slaying, Larry Vigil, 46, fared less well when he was sentenced last year for manslaughter and burglary.
Larry Vigil, who continued a life of crime following the homicide, is serving up to 20 years at Utah State Prison.
Herrera died in retaliation for a previous gang-related shooting where Mario Vigil was wounded in the neck.
But Herrera was not a gang member and had nothing to do with the earlier shooting, according to prosecutors.
Two weeks after Mario Vigil was shot, he drove his cousin, Larry Vigil and Joseph Vigil to a home near 700 South and 840 West, where they believed they would find rival gang members.
While Mario Vigil waited in the car, Larry Vigil, armed with a .22-caliber handgun, and Joseph Vigil, carrying a .38-caliber weapon, kicked on the door of a home, then started firing through the walls and windows.
Herrera, 27, died after being struck in the heart by a .38-caliber slug.
Arrested the same day, Mario Vigil confessed in detail to police.
But, strangely, nothing came of the confession until 2005, after the case was re-opened when Larry Vigil tried to knock some time off his burglary conviction by blaming the Herrera slaying on a deceased relative.
When prosecutors checked the file, they discovered Mario Vigil's previous confession, said Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Vincent Meister.
And when Mario Vigil was approached a second time by police, he offered the same confession.
Meister acknowledged it was a difficult case for the judge - one which would have been more easily resolved when the defendants were still solidly entrenched in gang life.
Defense attorney Earl Xaiz noted that the Vigils had the misfortune of being born into a gang family.
Defense attorney Ed Brass noted that Joseph Vigil "on his own turned that around."
"He's a remarkable human being," Brass said. "It's the rarest of rare cases."