A Bucks County jury is deliberating in the retrial of a 2007 double slaying in Warminster

For the second time in 15 years, a Bucks County jury is weighing the fate of Alfonso Sanchez in a double slaying inside a cramped Warminster apartment.

But after about two hours of deliberations late Friday, the jury was dismissed for the weekend. They‘ll return Monday morning to resume.

Sanchez, 41, is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, burglary, and related crimes in the deaths of Mendez Thomas, 22, and Lisa Diaz, 27, whom prosecutors say he shot to death during an argument inside the Bucks Landing apartments in 2007.

The trial before Bucks County Court Judge Alan Rubenstein is the second for Sanchez, who was convicted in the deaths in 2008. But a prosecutorial mistake involving DNA evidence prompted District Attorney Matt Weintraub to grant Sanchez a second trial in 2017.

Sanchez has long maintained his innocence. But as he sat on death row after his first conviction, he allegedly tried to hire a gang member to kill a key witness in the case, Jess Carmona, Diaz’s sister and the only victim to survive the shooting. In 2021, Sanchez was charged with criminal solicitation to commit murder, conspiracy, witness intimidation, and related offenses.

In court this week, Carmona, in emotional testimony, described how Sanchez chased down and executed Thomas, the father of her children, at point-blank range, and then turned the gun on Diaz. He then fired at Carmona as she shielded her son, she said, striking her in her knee.

In a chilling 911 call played in court, Carmona told the dispatcher the identity of the shooter: “His name is Alfonso.”

Despite her account — and the more recent charges — Sanchez’s lawyers told the jury the true killer was Steven Miranda, who was inside the apartment that evening.

In his closing arguments Friday morning, Sanchez’s attorney, Frank Genovese, said the prosecution’s theory of the case couldn’t get around the “stubborn evidence” casting reasonable doubt on Sanchez’s role in the shootings.

Genovese said Miranda, who had previously dated Diaz, was the only one who had motive to attack her, because they had recently argued over whether she was pregnant with his child.

Additionally, Genovese called on a former Warminster officer, John Crowley, who testified that Carmona initially identified Miranda as the shooter when Crowley responded to the scene of the murders.

“The whole idea of this solicitation part of this case is a charade,” Genovese said. “The commonwealth let it play out to make their weak murder case better.”

During Sanchez’s weeklong trial, prosecutors built their case of a murder-for-hire plot on Sanchez’s codefendants, including Karrol Lloyd, his former girlfriend, and Tony Sparango, his former cellmate and the hitman he allegedly tapped to kill Carmona.

Genovese contended that Lloyd was the true mastermind. He said she persuaded Sanchez to kill Carmona and then told prosecutors about the plot in a bid for leniency in her own criminal case for her role in helping Sanchez run a suboxone smuggling operation in the Bucks County Correctional Facility.

Both she and Sparango, who also faces criminal charges, “have every reason to come in here and make things as bad as possible for Mr. Sanchez,” the defense lawyer said.

But Weintraub, in his own closing argument, urged the jurors to convict Sanchez on all charges. He said Sanchez wanted the jury to engage in “magical thinking” and ignore what he described as a clear, concise body of evidence.

“Just because you want something to be true, you wish something to be true, you need something to be true, doesn’t mean it is true,” he said. “There is zero evidence that Steven Miranda is the murderer.”

Weintraub said Sanchez has demonstrated his consciousness of guilt in multiple ways, chief among them the unsuccessful plot to turn Sparango into his “personal Frankenstein’s monster” and attempt to kill Carmona.

“Let’s put it simply: People who are innocent of murder don’t try to have living witnesses killed,” he said.

The top prosecutor told jurors to trust in Carmona’s recollection of that night in Warminster, saying she had no reason to lie or protect a different suspect.

“The big picture in this case is Jessica Carmona told the truth,” he said. “You don’t have to like these people, or judge their lifestyles. You just have decide if they were telling the truth.”