Midland teen guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison

Midland County District Attorney Laura Nodolf announced in a news release that a 17-year-old Midland man was sentenced to thirty years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to murder. Aaron Olivares Duran was charged in case CR59525 with the 2022 murder of 19-year-old Jayshun Anders. Duran was fifteen years old at the time of the murder and after being presented with evidence regarding his maturity and the seriousness of the murder, Judge Mark Dettman certified Duran to be of legal age in June 2023. Duran was arraigned in August 2023 in the 238th Judicial District Court on a single count of murder.

On Nov. 26, Duran pleaded guilty to murder before District Court Judge Elizabeth Leonard and chose her to determine the sentence. First-degree murder carries a penalty of five to ninety-nine years or life, with the possibility of parole. After hearing evidence on Monday, Judge Leonard handed down her sentence to 30 years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The evidence presented at trial showed that the defendant and three other juveniles arrived at Anders’ apartment in the early hours of June 26, 2022. Two of the teens approached the door while two teens, including Duran, stayed out of sight. As soon as Anders opened the door, the teenagers opened fire. Anders was hit and subsequently died from his injuries. Midland police collected sixteen shell casings and presented photographs of the bullet holes in the apartment’s windows, walls and doors as evidence to the judge.

During the investigation, Detective Doroteo Arguijo reviewed and presented over 9,000 pages of Instagram and Facebook records of Duran and another juvenile plotting the robbery and/or murder of Anders beginning in February 2022. The other teenager involved in the news was killed in a separate shooting in July 2022. After Anders’ murder, Duran and his family moved to Arizona before he was arrested in the fall of 2022 and incarcerated at Culver Detention Center in Midland. After his seventeenth birthday, he was transferred to the Midland County Detention Center in May 2024.

In Texas, a juvenile between the ages of fourteen and sixteen can be recognized as an adult for criminal prosecution if certain criteria are met. The magnitude of the offense must be serious enough, the juvenile’s maturity and mental level must be high enough, and evidence must be presented to justify the accusation being confirmed. If a juvenile is certified, the case will be prosecuted as if the juvenile were an adult, with the same penalties and consequences as for someone seventeen years of age or older.

The case was prosecuted by Midland County Assistant District Attorneys Lauren Gavin and Kane Handford. Duran was represented by Midland attorneys Tyler Mayo and Andrew Stallings. The trial took place in the 238th District Court and was presided over by Judge Elizabeth Byer Leonard.

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