Jury Convicts Christopher Preciado in Murders of Pregnant Teen and Boyfriend

A Bexar County jury needed just two hours to reach a verdict that took more than two years to arrive: Christopher Preciado, 21, guilty on all counts of capital murder in the December 2023 killings of pregnant teenager Savanah Soto, her boyfriend Matthew Guerra, and their unborn son, Fabian.

The verdict came March 26, 2026, following an eight-day trial in San Antonio. Because the Bexar County District Attorney's office declined to seek the death penalty, Texas Penal Code § 12.31 dictated the sentence automatically: life in a Texas prison with no possibility of parole, ever. Preciado was 21 when the jury read its finding.

The pregnancy is the legal linchpin of the entire charge structure. Texas is one of a small number of states that treats the killing of an unborn child as a separate count under its capital-murder framework. The inclusion of Fabian as a named victim in the indictment is what elevated these killings from homicide to capital murder. That distinction carries no additional punishment when the death penalty is waived, but it permanently changes the charge, the conviction record, and the legal weight of what a jury is asked to decide.

Preciado's defense argued self-defense throughout, claiming that Guerra fired the first shot during a physical struggle. The prosecution countered with forensic evidence and witness testimony, arguing that Preciado had planned the shootings and that the physical evidence directly contradicted the self-defense account. Motive and opportunity were central to the state's case. The jury's two-hour deliberation, after eight full days of testimony, reflects how completely that combination landed.

The courtroom was packed every day. Family members attended each session, a presence that tracked the community's investment in the case since the bodies were first discovered in San Antonio in December 2023. Savanah Soto was a teenager expecting her first child. Matthew Guerra was her boyfriend and Fabian's father. The loss of all three, one of them never born, had drawn sustained grief and media coverage across Bexar County for more than two years before the first witness was sworn in.

After the verdict, the Bexar County District Attorney's office issued statements praising the jury's service and underscoring the gravity of the crimes. Families expressed the particular combination of relief and sorrow that follows a long-awaited conviction: acknowledgment that the process worked, alongside grief that no process can undo.

Under Texas law, there is no ambiguity in what follows. No parole eligibility, no future hearing, no release date to calculate. At 21, Preciado will age and die in a Texas correctional facility. Defense counsel may pursue appeals on the trial record, but for Savanah Soto's family, for Matthew Guerra's family, and for everyone who tracked this case across more than two years, twelve Bexar County jurors settled the central question in two hours.