Mom speaks to son's shooter

The mother of a Topeka homicide victim spoke Friday during the sentencing of Fernando Diaz, the man who fatally shot her son in July 2015.

Diaz, 26, was sentenced to more than a decade in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

On July 25, 2015, Topeka police responded to a vehicle crash and found Christopher Galvan, 22, in the driver's seat with a gunshot wound. He died three days later at a hospital.

During a victim impact statement, Cassandra Whetstone recounted seeing her son go from the intensive care unit to an operating room to have his organs donated.

"That was the last time I saw him with a beating heart," she told the court. "He saved many lives."

Whetstone said Diaz left Galvan, a friend, to suffer and die when he fired the shot.

"My life at that moment changed forever," she said, adding that the incident also took Galvan from his two children.

At times, Whetstone looked directly at Diaz to address him. 

"I hope you always see his face," she said.

Shawnee County District Judge David Debenham imposed a 128-month prison sentence, to be served consecutively with a 2014 case in which Diaz pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, fleeing or attempting to elude and interference with a law enforcement officer.

"You did a bad thing," Debenham told Diaz.

However, the judge said, Diaz has the ability to change.

Diaz was also ordered to pay court and extradition costs, a DNA database fee and $2,000 to CrimeStoppers. The organization received a tip that Diaz had fled to Mexico, where he was arrested in September 2018. He was originally charged with second-degree murder.

Diaz declined to speak during the hearing.