Killer of Hillsboro bar manager admits guilt

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Not long after midnight on April 1, 2023, Isaura Soto-Gaona was managing Kim's Red Rose in Hillsboro when she asked four young men to leave. Three of them left, but one lingered near the doorway, pulled out a gun and shot the 42-year-old woman to death.

The shooter, Sain Delgado Venegas, admitted he murdered her and on Tuesday was sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 25 years, the Washington County District Attorney's Office said.

Venegas also pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder and guilty of being an inmate with a weapon.

Surveillance cameras inside Kim's Red Rose captured the shooting, authorities said, and connected Venegas to the shooting by matching his clothing with other surveillance cameras at the Washington County courthouse, where he met with his parole officer a few weeks before he killed the bar manager.

And, the District Attorney's office said, while he was being held in the county jail awaiting his murder trial, "jail deputies found a makeshift weapon hidden" in his jail cell during a routine search.

The attempted murder charges stemmed from Venegas trying to shoot the bartender and Ms. Soto-Goana, but the gun malfunctioned. Then he "racked the slide and fired a round directly at Ms. Soto-Gaona. The round struck her in the chest," the DA's office said.

Venegas will serve his life sentence in an Oregon Department of Corrections prison.