The Orange County case centered on a failed carjacking that ended with a 36-year-old mother of two shot outside her home.
ORLANDO, FL — A man convicted in the 2021 killing of Central Florida mother Roxana Sanchez was sentenced Monday to life in prison, closing one chapter in a case that began when Sanchez was shot in her driveway after returning home from a shopping trip the night before Mother’s Day.
Judge Michael Kraynick imposed the sentence on Jordan Robinson in Orange County after relatives of Sanchez asked for the stiffest punishment available. Robinson had been convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of Sanchez, who was 36 when she died. The sentence carries a 25-year minimum mandatory term, and it came after years of court delays, plea talks and changes in Robinson’s legal strategy. The hearing also addressed a separate case tied to an attempted murder and attempted carjacking several days after Sanchez was killed.
Family members filled the courtroom Monday and spoke about the loss of a woman they described as the center of their home. One of Sanchez’s sisters told the judge that Sanchez “was a beautiful soul” and asked the court to weigh that as it decided Robinson’s punishment. Sanchez’s husband, Douglas Mejia, gave a victim impact statement that turned directly to the violence of May 8, 2021. He said Robinson showed his wife no mercy and asked the court to respond in kind. Sanchez had gone to the Waterford Lakes retail area with a friend that night, according to investigators. Her friend drove her back to Lecon Branch Court. As the women sat in the driveway, a white car pulled up behind them. Two men got out, banged on the windows and tried to force a confrontation. One of them had a gun. As the driver tried to flee, the vehicle crashed, and Sanchez had been shot.
Authorities later said the attack was an attempted carjacking and that Robinson was not alone. Investigators identified Ja’Quarius McCray as the other participant and accused the pair of following Sanchez home before the shooting. McCray, who was 17 at the time of the killing, resolved his case in 2023 through a plea agreement. He pleaded guilty and received a 40-year prison sentence after prosecutors reduced the murder charge to second-degree murder as part of that deal. Robinson’s case moved on a different track. He was charged separately and remained jailed while attorneys argued over whether the case would end in a plea or go before a jury. Reporting from the court record shows Robinson at one point agreed to a plea and entered a no-contest plea on Aug. 20, 2024, then backed away and sought a jury trial before changing course again. That sequence stretched the case well beyond the timeline Sanchez’s relatives had expected when the arrests were first announced.
The killing stunned family members in part because it happened in a place that should have been safe: Sanchez’s own driveway, near the end of an ordinary Saturday. Relatives have said repeatedly through the court process that the timing made the crime even harder to absorb. Sanchez was killed on the night before Mother’s Day, and she left behind two sons. In earlier hearings, her relatives described her as a wife, sister and steady presence in the family. Mejia said after McCray’s sentencing in 2023 that Sanchez was his soulmate, his best friend and the mother of their boys. The prosecution’s account has remained consistent across the hearings that followed: Sanchez and her friend were targeted after leaving the shopping area, followed home and confronted outside the house. Public reporting has not fully answered every remaining question about how the suspects selected Sanchez or whether they had targeted others that night before arriving on Lecon Branch Court. What is clear from the court proceedings is that the encounter turned deadly within moments.
Monday’s hearing also touched a second Orange County case involving Robinson. According to courtroom reporting, the judge sentenced him in connection with the attempted murder and attempted carjacking of Olalekan Omotoso, a crime that happened several days after Sanchez was killed. The available public account did not lay out every detail of how the sentences in the two cases will operate together, but Kraynick stated from the bench that Robinson would receive life in the Department of Corrections with the 25-year minimum mandatory in the Sanchez case. Robinson had already spent nearly four years in jail awaiting sentencing, meaning that time will count toward the mandatory portion of the term. Before the judge announced the punishment, Robinson addressed Sanchez’s family and said he wanted to express his “deepest, most profound sorrow” for the pain and hardship his actions caused. He said the choices were his own and that he took full responsibility for the harm. The family’s response made clear that the apology did little to ease their loss.
The hearing carried the heavy, intimate tone that often marks the final stage of a long homicide case. Robinson appeared in court in handcuffs and shackles, and those who had followed the case for years saw a different figure from the young man first accused in the killing. But for Sanchez’s relatives, the focus stayed on the woman they lost, not the man being sentenced. Mejia told the court that his wife paid the ultimate price. The family’s remarks returned again and again to the same damage: the empty place Sanchez left in the lives of her children, husband and siblings, and the years spent waiting for a final sentence. The case also underscored how a violent property crime can become a murder case in seconds when a gun is introduced. At McCray’s sentencing, a judge noted that anyone who takes a firearm to commit a crime is one moment away from becoming a murderer. Monday’s sentence for Robinson brought the same conclusion to the front of the courtroom: an attempted carjacking ended with a mother dead and two families permanently altered.
The case now stands at sentencing rather than trial, with Robinson ordered to serve a life term and McCray already in prison on his own sentence. As of Monday, the next milestone would be any post-sentencing motions or appeal deadlines tied to Robinson’s conviction and punishment.
Author note: Last updated March 30, 2026.