TULSA, Okla. — (Update) A Tulsa man charged with murder following a road rage incident in 2022 has been sentenced to life in prison.

He was found guilty of murder in December 2023 after killing a woman in a road rage accident.

Zavaleta appeared in court for formal sentencing on Tuesday afternoon.

He was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon.

Zavaleta was given a life sentence for his murder conviction and 25 years for the second charge. He will serve these sentences concurrently.

Zavaleta must serve a minimum of 38 years and 3 months before he is eligible for parole.

During the proceedings, the judge denied Zavaleta’s request for another continuation and a new trial.

(December 2023) Julian Zavaleta was found guilty of murder on Friday after killing a woman in what police call a road rage incident last year.

He was also found guilty of the use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon.

In 2022, the 22-year-old was officially charged with murder and shooting with intent to kill after a road rage incident in the AutoZone parking lot near 51st and Peoria.

Julian Zavaleta was charged for firing shots from his car, into another car, killing 25-year-old Shantel Jones in the middle of the afternoon Aug. 19, 2022.

Charging documents said Zavaleta initially left the scene but called police less than hour later to turn himself in. The report went on to say officers recovered the gun they believe was used from the back of a business near 71st and Trenton.

FOX23 was in the courtroom for the verdict on Friday and spoke with the families.

Shanel Smith, sister of Shantel Jones, told FOX23 Zavaleta’s claims of self defense added insult to injury.

“He chose to follow her, he chose to take her life,” Smith said. “You took our sister from us but to try and smear her name like that was just killing her all over again.”

Smith reacted to the verdict.

“We’re just so happy that our sister finally gets the justice that she deserves,” she said. “She didn’t deserve to leave the earth that way, so we just thankful and grateful for our lawyers and we just thank god, we just thank god that he allowed them to see the truth and was able to give our family justice and just a tiny bit of closure. We’ll never have full closure because a part of us is gone, a part of us is missing, everyday we miss her, and so life will never be the same without her.”

“For the last 16 months we haven’t been able to start to process, to heal because we knew that we would have to come here and just hear all the details of it and see the videos and see the pictures, so we haven’t even began to heal, so I think our healing starts today,” Smith said.

Smith paid tribute to her sister Shantel.

“She was the life of the party, she liked to keep everybody smiling, she liked to keep everybody going, she just loved people, she loved family, she just loved to make sure that everybody was happy,” Smith said.

FOX23 also spoke with Tulsa County Assistant DA John Tjeerdsma.

“There are many cases of legitimate self defense, but I have an issue when someone shoots someone out of anger or fear or whatever and then they try to claim self defense, because it does diminish the reality of actual self defense situations,” Tjeerdsma said.

He said the escalation of the 2022 incident is unbelievable and shocking.

“I hope the family finds peace, I hope that they view this as justice, and I hope they can take this and move on and start to remember Shantel with fond memories,” Tjeerdsma said.

He spoke on Zavaleta’s trial and the verdict.

“Certainly his age was a difficulty,” he said. “He didn’t have any prior history and he does something shocking and violent and just takes someone’s life in an instant over something petty because she cut him off in traffic. So it certainly is shocking, but he took someone’s life and it was clearly a murder in the first degree.”