Government / Politics

Lawsuit filed against company that employed warden involved in deadly West Texas migrant shooting

KTEP | By Angela Kocherga | KTEP

Published August 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM CDT

Fivemile tank reservoir was the scene of a shooting on September 27, 2022. The twin brothers involved say they were hunting wild animals when they killed a man and injured a woman. Both victims were migrants who stopped at the watering hole with a group of other people who had crossed a rugged stretch of nearby border.

Nearly three years after the warden of the West Texas Detention Facility shot and killed a migrant man and injured a woman near Sierra Blanca, his former employer La Salle Corrections is being sued.

A jury is set to hear arguments in federal court in El Paso next week in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Berenice Casillas Castillo, the young woman who survived a gunshot wound to her abdomen and Jesus Sepulveda, the man who died after being shot in the face. They were with a group of migrants who stopped at a reservoir a few miles north of the border in Hudspeth County.

Mike Sheppard, the warden, pulled the trigger, hitting two migrants. His twin brother Mark told the investigating Texas Ranger, the brothers were out hunting wild animals. Their lawyers have told KTEP News it was a "hunting accident."

The lawsuit alleges the shooting was "intentional and knowing" and La Salle Corrections is liable since the Mike Sheppard was a warden on duty the afternoon of September 27, 2022, and right after attended a water board meeting where Sheppard represented the company. Sheppard lost his job with the company shortly after the deadly incident.

La Salle Corrections manages 18 correctional facilities in Louisiana, Georgia and Texas with a total capacity for 13,000 inmates according to its website. The West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca has in the past also held people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE.

The shooting left a scar on the small town near the watering hole. Many Sierra Blanca residents have said they find it hard to believe the brothers could not distinguish between a human and a javelina, the animal Mark Sheppard said they were hunting along with ducks and birds that day. The twins were accused of manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon, released on bond and returned to their home state Florida.

The criminal case has languished under multiple El Paso District Attorneys. The current DA James Montoya declined comment since his office said he doesn't discuss pending cases.