GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The survivor of a metro Atlanta double murder is breathing a sigh of relief after a judge put his would-be killer in prison for the rest of his life.
A judge sentenced 55-year-old Javier Ruiz after he pleaded guilty to those two murders last Tuesday.
Jace Corley is alive because he said a gun jammed inches from his head.
“Luckily that didn’t go off or else,” Corley said.
Then he survived a stabbing.
“I’m just lucky to be alive,” Corley told Channel 2’s Matt Johnson.
Police said Ruiz had just killed his girlfriend’s sister and her brother-in-law.
When his girlfriend walked outside and saw Ruiz’s truck, all she knew was that her little sister never made it home.
“She goes to confront him, and I go to back her up, and he basically will pull a gun to my head and put the knives in my throat,” Corley said.
Ruiz pled guilty to murdering 17-year-old Jesua Garcia Perez and her brother-in-law, Javier Martinez.
Prosecutors said Ruiz got into Martinez’s car last December and shot them both on Harbins Road near Lilburn.
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Prosecutors say he also admitted to stabbing Corley and shooting at Corley’s girlfriend that same night.
“After that, I went to the hospital. Thankfully … thank God I didn’t pass away that day,” Corley said.
Ruiz had gone to church with the family for years.
They said he was told to stay away from the 17-year-old a year before the murder happened.
He was sentenced to life with parole last week.
“Preferably without parole for what he did and the damage and pain that we’ve been through and everything,” Corley said.
Corley said the night that nearly killed him changed more than his body.
“I haven’t really been a man of faith my whole life, and recently I’ve been starting to go to church ever since that happened,” Corley said.
The convicted killer was given a chance at parole, but he will be 85 when he’s eligible for it.
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