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Filomena Vasquez spent New Year’s Day 2020 with family, gifting her daughter a pair of brand new fluffy socks and celebrating a birthday dinner for her husband. At the end of the night, the 56-year-old sat at her kitchen table reading her Bible, preparing to give a radio sermon the next day, family and friends said.

Lurking outside the home, authorities said, was a 23-year-old man who had a grievance with Vasquez’s son — and a gun to settle it. The son, police said, had sold a car to Sammie Warren, then refused to give him a refund after Warren alleged the vehicle had stopped working.

Warren opened fire, and gunfire pierced the window, authorities said. A single bullet killed the mother of five and grandmother of at least 10 who served as a church deacon.

On Friday, Warren, now 27, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for her killing, which led to his conviction on a second-degree murder charge and related counts in May. Prince George’s County Assistant State’s Attorney Brenna Bush said in court that Warren had been arrested 11 times before the New Year’s shooting — which could have been even more deadly, because Vasquez’s family was also inside the home.

“Only by an act of God that everybody didn’t die that day,” Bush said in court.

The penalty handed down by Judge ShaRon Grayson Kelsey went above the 40-year penalty that was the high end called for by sentencing guidelines. She said in court that the “light sentences” Warren had received in the past “gave him opportunities to take a different path.”

Bush said that Warren was on probation in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old in 2016, to which he pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a firearm. And he was prohibited from having a gun after being judged delinquent by a juvenile court in 2013 “for an act that would be a disqualifying crime if committed by an adult,” according to online court records.

“History is showing us prior sentences are ineffective with deterrence … with rehabilitation,” Kelsey said in court. “All that’s left is punishment.”

Gunman fired into home, struck grandmother seated next to open Bible, police said

Given the final word before his sentence, Warren said, “Even though I know I didn’t do this crime … I feel sorry for the family.”

Keith Lee Hiller, his attorney, said that they “strongly disagree with the jury’s verdict.”

Police responded the night of Jan. 1 first to the home on Varnum Street in the Hyattsville area and found Vasquez shot, according to charging documents. She died at the scene despite emergency responders’ attempts to save her.

According to prosecutors, investigators found 14 shell casings in front of the home and apparent bullet holes in the kitchen window. Police said in charging documents that officers recovered an empty 14-round capacity magazine at Warren’s home.

Authorities alleged that on Christmas Eve, about a week before the shooting, Vasquez’s son sold a car to Warren for $1,200 through the OfferUp phone application. They met in front of the home on Varnum Street to finish the sale.

Soon after, Warren sent text messages “regarding a mechanical malfunction of the vehicle” and asked for a refund. When Vasquez’s son denied the refund, Warren threatened to “take up the matter” with Vasquez’s parents, according to the charging documents.

Investigators found the phone number that was linked to the OfferUp app was registered to Warren. Location data for the number showed Warren at the location of the shooting at the time it happened, according to charging documents.

When police tried to arrest him at his home in Bowie in the days after, Warren was at a window with a handgun. Bush argued in court that he tried to toss the gun out the window, then ran from officers. He was taken into custody, police said in charging documents.

In court Friday, nearly every seat was filled by more than two dozen family and friends of Vasquez. Her pastor, Iluminada Gomez, spoke about Vasquez’s service as a deacon at their church, and said she was a “person given to the service of the Lord.”

Vasquez babysat her sister’s children from morning to evening, her younger sister Sandra Ortez-Alfaro said. Vasquez’s daughter, Elena Vasquez-Alfaro, said her mother often went on trips to IHOP with her for hot cocoa and was the person she “felt the safest with.”

Vasquez-Alfaro said she had to move out of the family home because of how afraid she was after the shooting. She turned to Warren in court and said that she had asked God to help her forgive him.

“It’s a mix of emotions obviously, but I do feel like a big weight was taken off my shoulders,” Vasquez-Alfaro said after the sentence.

Dan Morse contributed to this report.