A former Merrillville man was sentenced Friday to 3.5 years in prison for fatally stabbing a man in the neck outside a Merrillville hotel in August 2023.
Nelson “Chencho” Alvarez-Godoy, 30, pleaded guilty Dec. 6 to reckless homicide.
Deputy Prosecutor Kasey Dafoe played a cell phone video that showed parts of two separate fights and the victim Ramon Solis-Espinosa on a sidewalk bleeding.
Alvarez-Godoy, from Honduras, was not a citizen and is facing deportation after his conviction, she said. Immigration was scheduled to interview him when he arrived at the Indiana Department of Correction.
Lawyers said he got roped into the second fight at the hotel.
Solis-Espinosa was a “somewhat innocent bystander” and the stabbing was unprovoked, Dafoe said.
Witnesses were “non-citizens” and “non-English” speaking. Dafoe told the court that she contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – gave their names – and they couldn’t be located.
Alvarez-Godoy was “significantly injured” as well, she said.
Defense lawyer Herb Shaps said his client didn’t start the fight and “does not feel pride in what he did.”
He was working in construction, living at the hotel with co-workers, lawyers said.
Prosecutors would have had a difficult time proving he intended to kill – i.e. a murder case – and the plea was ultimately a “compromise,” Shaps said.
“He didn’t start the fight, but unfortunately, he ended it in a very bad way,” he said.
Alvarez-Godoy, through an interpreter, declined to speak in court.
Later, Shaps told Judge Samuel Cappas his client was “unlikely” to appeal.
Indiana law requires inmates to serve 75% of their sentence. Alvarez was already credited for two years for time already served and good time credit.
Merrillville police were called Aug. 12, 2023, to Woodspring Suites Hotel, 1500 83rd Ave., for a reported battery. There they saw a man with a wound over his right eye yelling in Spanish.
He said he was in the parking lot drinking beer when “Chencho,” aka Alvarez-Godoy, joined him.
Somehow, Alvarez-Godoy got angry and tried to hit him over the head with a beer bottle, then a fight broke out between them, the man said.
Alvarez-Godoy’s friend “Mauricio” ran to a truck and handed him an unknown object.
Alvarez-Godoy chased the man he was fighting with and his two friends, including Solis-Espinosa, to the hotel. Solis-Espinosa, 32, made it to the hotel door when he turned around and Alvarez-Godoy stabbed him in the neck.
Police found beer bottles and a large kitchen knife. Solis was lying in the parking lot.
Solis’ address was not listed in the coroner’s report.
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