SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.

But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.

“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”

But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.

“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.

“Don’t release him ever. Please.”

On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.

Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.

According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.

On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.

Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.

On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.

“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.

McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.

“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.

Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”

After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”

His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”

Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.

“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”

Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.

The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.

The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.