GERMANTOWN, Md. — EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above is from 2017, soon after the murders of the two students.
A murder conviction is back in place for a man who took part in the slayings of two Northwest High School students on the eve of their graduation in 2017.
The Maryland Court of Appeals opinion was released Monday in the case of Rony Galicia, 30, of Boyds, Maryland, reinstating the murder conviction that was reversed in 2021.
Two honor roll students -- 17-year-old Shadi Ali Najjar and 18-year-old Artem S. Ziberov -- were shot to death in Najjar's car in Montgomery Village, on June 5, 2017, just one day shy of their graduation.
The killing was said to have been in retaliation for a robbery Najjar may have had a part in. During trial, the prosecution asserted that Najjar was said to be purchasing marijuana from the pregnant wife of one of the suspects in December 2016. The prosecution said Najjar drove to the drug buy, grabbed a bag of marijuana from the woman and drove off without paying, running over the woman's foot in the process. The woman was hospitalized; her unborn child apparently was unharmed, court documents said.
Evidence established that multiple guns were used in the attack; Najjar was shot three times in the head at close range and once in the thigh while Ziberov was shot at least 10 times in the neck, chest, back and arms.
Galicia, who was 25 at the time, was arrested after DNA found at the scene tied him to the murders. In addition to Galicia, three other men were arrested and charged with the murders - Jose Ovilson Canales-Yanez (the husband of the pregnant woman), Edgar Garcia-Gaona and his younger half-brother Roger Garcia. All four were convicted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of various charges related to the murders as a result of three separate trials.
The Court of Special Appeals reversed Galicia’s conviction in January 2021, on the basis of two evidentiary issues that arose during his trial, but the higher Court of Appeals has now reached a different conclusion on both of those issues.
Monday's decision reinstates Galicia’s convictions on two counts of first-degree premeditated murder, two counts of first-degree felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and armed robbery.
Galicia was sentenced in 2019 to consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the two first-degree murder convictions, a concurrent life term on the conspiracy count, and consecutive terms totaling 60 years’ incarceration on the firearms and robbery counts.
“The opinion from Maryland’s highest court reaffirms what the State believed from the beginning. Rony Galicia is, indeed, responsible for the violent deaths of these two teenagers along with his co-defendants. We are pleased to learn the jury’s decision will be upheld and Galicia will continue to serve out his sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Our hearts are with the families of the victims today,” said State’s Attorney John McCarthy.
