Man sentence to 18 years for murder of drug acquaintance

PORT ORCHARD — A man who pleaded guilty to gunning down an acquaintance in Seabeck and leaving the body on a dark, remote road while he tried to cover his tracks, apologized Thursday before being sentenced to 18 years in prison.

On February 18, Andrew Phillip Gilbert, 23, shot Hector “Ricky” Apodaca, 30, three times in the face and head, telling Kitsap County Sheriff’s detectives he believed Apodaca was planning to carjack him, despite saying Apodaca made no threats.

Andrew Phillip Gilbert

During the sentencing Thursday, the prosecutor on the case drew connections between Apodaca’s murder and what is believed to be Kitsap County’s largest embezzlement case.

Hector "Ricky" Apodaca

Apodaca’s murder also parallels the death of his mother, Janet Eaton, who was shot to death 12 years ago.

Gilbert and Apodaca had been doing meth and heroin together on the day of the shooting, according to the prosecutor – a broken meth pipe was recovered from the scene near Apodaca’s body. They had been introduced by a common acquaintance, a drug dealer, and went for a drive ostensibly to see a friend and fellow gang member of Apodaca’s who lived in Seabeck.

At the time, Gilbert was selling property that had been purchased by his father’s girlfriend, Tracy Hatch, who had been sent to prison the month before for embezzling $1.1 million from her employer. A friend of Apodaca’s told the Kitsap Sun that Apodaca was not trying to steal Gilbert’s car, but was trying to help him sell it.

At the time of Apodaca’s murder, Gilbert and his father, Phillip Gilbert, were living in Hatch’s foreclosed Island Lake house.

“It’s certainly a tragedy for all,” said Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Bill Houser, who could have sentenced Gilbert up to 25 years, the sentence requested by Deputy Prosecutor Breanna Peterson.

Gilbert apologized to Apodaca’s family, and his own, saying he had no excuse and accepted full responsibility.

“I understand if you hate me and curse me for what I have done,” Gilbert said to Apodaca’s family.

In a letter read to Judge Houser, Apodaca’s father called Gilbert a coward for shooting an unarmed man, saying he did not forgive him and neither would God. The letter started, however, by saying others bore responsibility for what happened to Apodaca. The father wrote he had sought custody of Apodaca when his son was 10 and was denied.

“The courts failed him, his mother failed him, I failed him and he failed himself,” Apodaca’s father wrote. Friends of Apodaca said he was crippled by grief when his mother was murdered in 2005, blaming the loss for his drift into gangs and drugs. Eaton was shot by a 21-year-old woman as she stood off Sixth Street in downtown Bremerton.

Gilbert’s mother, who spoke in court but asked that her name not be printed out of fear of retaliation, asked Houser for mercy, saying Gilbert’s downfall had been his involvement in drugs.

“What he did was a mistake, I’m not making excuses for that, but had he not been into drugs this never would have happened,” she said.

Gilbert had initially been charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Gilbert’s court-appointed attorney, Tom Weaver, told Houser Gilbert’s account of feeling threatened was credible, but conceded Gilbert overreacted when Apodaca told Gilbert to pull over and let him drive Gilbert’s car.

Gilbert did pull over on the 9300 block of Misery Point Road, and Apodaca got out and walked around to the driver’s side, giving Gilbert a chance to escape a situation he found threatening. At the time, Gilbert was armed with a .25 caliber pistol.

“Instead of hitting the accelerator, he hit the trigger," Weaver said, asking for Houser to hand down a sentence below the 17-year minimum. Houser agreed he had the authority but declined to sentence Gilbert below the standard range.

Gilbert’s girlfriend, Hope Janet Hones Calhoun, 20, was not in the car with Gilbert and Apodaca but was convicted of first-degree rendering criminal assistance. She told investigators she found Apodaca’s phone in Gilbert’s car and broke it and threw it away. Last month Judge Jennifer Forbes sentenced her to three months in jail.