One of two brothers convicted of killing a man during a backyard shootout in Tacoma four years ago will spend at least the next 70 years behind bars. The lengthy sentence closes one chapter of a case that stretched back through years of violence tied to the same group of people.
Casey Estes was convicted of first and second degree murder, each with firearm enhancements, as well as assault and burglary. The charges stemmed from the shooting death of Alejandro Lorette, who was 36 years old, at a Tacoma house party in June of 2022. Prosecutors described the killing as a deliberate act rather than one of self preservation.
Estes received what is known as an exceptional sentence, a punishment that goes beyond the standard range. The reason, prosecutors said, was the timing. The killing happened just days after Estes had been released from prison for another homicide, rather than allowing that earlier chapter to close.
The connection between the two cases was not lost on the court. Prosecutors said the victim in the 2022 shooting was not a stranger to Estes. Instead, Lorette had been his co-defendant in that first homicide, the very case for which Estes had only recently completed his prison sentence.
That earlier case dated back more than a decade. Estes and the victim shared a criminal history, having both been charged in the deadly shooting of a 29 year old woman in 2009. In that case, Estes' older brother, Jaycee, pleaded guilty, underlining how deeply intertwined the group had become over the years.
With the conviction and the exceptional sentence now in place, Estes faces decades in prison. Prosecutors framed the outcome as accountability for a pattern of violence that had continued even after time behind bars, arguing that the defendant had chosen to reopen a chapter that should have stayed closed.