Human Trafficker Who Killed 4 While Running from Texas Police Learns His Fate in Court
A Louisiana man who was smuggling illegal immigrants at the time of a 2023 crash that left four people dead has been sentenced to life behind bars.
Rassian Comer, 21, was sentenced last week in San Angelo, Texas, according to KCBD-TV.
On March 13, 2023, Comer had with him nearly a dozen illegal immigrants when he engaged police in a chase at speeds that surpassed 100 miles per hour.
During the chase, he livestreamed the pursuit, which ended in Ozona, when he ran a red light and struck a pickup truck, killing two illegal immigrants he was smuggling and two people in the truck.
“There are no words that can adequately express the unbearable impact of losing Mom and Emilia,” family members of Maria Socorro Alvarez Tambunga, 71, and Emilia Brooke Tambunga, 7, said in a statement after sentencing, according to KLST.
The statement said the deaths “left us only with fierce commitment and determination to enact sweeping change and to hold this animal accountable.”
“Nothing can undo what this animal did,” the statement said, but his sentence “does affirm something important: their lives mattered, their deaths mattered, and what was done to them could not simply go unanswered.”
“Today is not about closure — because a loss of this magnitude does not simply close. This Texas team stood up as our voices — their voices, Mom’s and Emi’s — and they carried the facts into the courtroom and pursued justice. For that, we will always be grateful,” the statement said.
“Thank you for standing with the victims, for standing with their families, and for seeing this case through to this moment. Your work has mattered more than words can say.”
THEY JUST WANTED ICE CREAM.
A Louisiana alien smuggler just got life in a San Angelo federal courtroom for turning Interstate 10 into a kill zone.
Rassian Nateray Comer was 21 when he packed 11 illegal aliens into a Ram, fled Texas troopers at over 100 mph, livestreamed the chase on Facebook, and blew through a red light in Ozona.
He murdered 7-year-old Emilia Brooke Tambunga and her 71-year-old grandmother, Maria “Coke” Tambunga.
Two of the people he was smuggling died too. Nine more were seriously hurt. This was his fourth smuggling run. For a few thousand dollars.
Judge James Wesley Hendrix handed him life on Friday. That little girl never got her ice cream. Her family gets the silence. This is what happens when our border is treated like a business and American kids are the collateral.
https://t.co/iPUrRUNUBI
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 26, 2026
Comer pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens resulting in death, 11 counts of transportation of an illegal alien resulting in death, and one count of possession of a stolen firearm, the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release.
“This horrific tragedy is almost beyond words,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.
“This monster was already trying to cause more chaos and destruction by smuggling illegal aliens into this country, then decided to lead police on a high-speed chase that claimed the lives of a grandmother and her granddaughter,” he continued.
“Maria Tambunga and Emilia Brooke Tambunga should still be alive today, and they would be if it weren’t for this criminal who endangered so many lives just for profit. Thanks to our partners at the Department of Justice, this scumbag will spend the rest of his life behind bars, where he belongs. My thoughts and prayers are with the Tambunga family, who have suffered a loss that few of us can even imagine,” he said.
U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said that “this case lays bare a heartbreaking human tragedy — a grandmother, a 7-year-old child and two Mexican nationals were all killed because of Mr. Comer’s criminal and depraved actions.”
LIFE IN PRISON FOR HUMAN SMUGGLER
Two and a half years ago, tragedy struck the small town of Ozona, Texas.
Rassian Nateray Comer, a US citizen human smuggler, was fleeing police at over 100 miles an hour when he crashed into another vehicle.
This case lays bare a heartbreaking human tragedy — a grandmother, a 7-year-old child and two Mexican nationals were all killed because of Mr. Comer’s criminal and depraved actions.
Today, justice is being served as Comer has been sentenced to life in prison.
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 1, 2026
“These were innocent lives, stolen in an instant by an alien smuggler whose criminal actions showed complete disregard for everyone on the road. No sentence can restore what was lost, but it does send a clear message: when criminals gamble with human lives, we will respond with the full weight of the federal government to ensure victims receive justice,” he continued.
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