Selena Santana delivered a victim impact statement before Johnluis Sanchez received an 18- to 20-year manslaughter sentence.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Nearly three years after a stray bullet struck a pregnant woman aboard a Holyoke bus, the mother addressed the loss of her unborn son in court Thursday as the first defendant tried in the case was sentenced to state prison.
Johnluis Sanchez, 33, of Holyoke received an 18- to 20-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter after a Hampden County jury convicted him Sept. 10. The jury also found him guilty of illegally carrying a firearm and illegally carrying a loaded firearm. The convictions arose from an Oct. 4, 2023, shooting on Sargeant Street that struck Saszkiana “Selena” Santana, who was about eight months pregnant. Her unborn son, posthumously named Ezekiel, died.
At Thursday’s sentencing, Santana delivered a victim impact statement about the consequences her family continues to face. She told the court she hoped Ezekiel’s name would become a reason for others to choose life, put down a gun and walk away from violence before other families are left to live with similar losses.
Santana had been riding on a passing Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus when gunfire broke out outside a market. Evidence at trial showed that Sanchez and Alejandro Ramos were waiting for Kermith Alvarez-Vargas. Prosecutors said Sanchez attacked Alvarez-Vargas with a firearm after he came out of the market. Alvarez-Vargas was also armed, and shots were exchanged among the three men.
One of the rounds entered the passing bus and struck Santana, who had no role in the confrontation. She was taken for emergency medical care. The shooting resulted in the death of Ezekiel, turning a dispute among armed men into a case centered on the harm suffered by an uninvolved passenger and her family.
Sanchez’s defense argued at trial that he acted in lawful self-defense. He originally faced a murder charge, but jurors convicted him of the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. The verdict also included the two firearm offenses. Sanchez was the first of the defendants accused of participating in the gunfire to have his case decided by a jury.
In addition to the 18- to 20-year manslaughter sentence, Sanchez received four to five years in state prison for illegal possession of a firearm, to be served concurrently. He was sentenced to another 2½ years in the House of Correction for illegally carrying a loaded firearm, with that term to be served after the firearm sentence, according to the Hampden District Attorney’s Office.
Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni said the case demonstrated how an exchange of gunfire can have consequences well beyond the people directly involved. He said Santana and her family will live with those consequences, while praising the prosecution team for handling what he described as a legally challenging case.
The criminal proceedings are not over. Ramos and Alvarez-Vargas were also charged in connection with the shooting, while Jose Galarza and Jay Marie Rosado-Rosario were indicted on accessory-after-the-fact charges over allegations that they assisted Alvarez-Vargas afterward. Each defendant’s case is being handled separately.
Alvarez-Vargas is currently scheduled to stand trial Nov. 4, prosecutors said. Sanchez’s sentencing closes the first trial arising from the shooting but leaves additional cases pending more than three years after the gunfire on Sargeant Street.
Author note: Last updated September 18, 2026.