Man Gets 45 Years in Prison for 2015 Work Place Killing in Grant County

A Royal City man is getting 45 years in prison for a workplace murder that happened six years ago.

Grant County Superior Court Judge Tyson Hill issued the decision Wednesday after 36-year-old Eduardo Ibarra Valencia was found guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.

Ibarra Valencia had agreed to a plea deal in 2017 to second-degree murder charges, but withdrew his plea in 2018 after both a Grant County Judge and an appeals court ruled his 48-year sentence was improperly figured under the wrong offender score.

The case returned to Grant County where his trial was held last month. He waived his right to a jury trial in favor of a judge's decision.

Ibarra Valencia was convicted of murdering a 49-year-old man and injuring a 54-year-old woman at Callahan Manufacturing in Royal City in November of 2015.

He told a judge in 2017 that he was "suffering from delusions that my coworkers were going to kill me and my family" when he brought a handgun to work.

Ibarra Valencia is now filing another appeal following his convictions and sentencing.