NORFOLK, Va. – Yesterday, Marco Hicks, 30, pleaded guilty in Norfolk Circuit Court to first- degree murder for shooting his friend Michael Rivera-Rubert in the head on September 4, 2022.
On the night of September 3, 2022, Mr. Hicks, Mr. Rivera-Rubert, and several friends went to a nightclub in the City of Norfolk, parking their vehicles at an overflow parking lot in a strip mall in the 800 block of North Military Highway. By about 2:00 A.M. on September 4, the group had returned to the strip mall parking lot. Surveillance video of the parking lot showed that the friends were chatting with one another, apparently uneventfully, for about 20 minutes, when Mr. Hicks went to his pickup truck, got a pistol, walked up to Mr. Rivera-Rubert, put the pistol nearly to Mr. Rivera-Rubert’s head, and shot him through the head one time, killing him nearly instantly.
After Mr. Hicks shot and killed Mr. Rivera-Rubert, Mr. Hicks and the various other parties left the scene in two vehicles. A good Samaritan who heard the gunshot from inside one of the strip- mall businesses came out and tried to help Mr. Rivera-Rubert, but there was nothing he could do. The Norfolk Police arrived at the scene soon afterward and found Mr. Rivera-Rubert dead.
Police investigation yielded the video from the strip mall and video from a number of other local businesses from that evening. The footage showed Mr. Hicks wearing the same jersey and clothing and bearing a distinctive tattoo of a rifle running vertically from the right side of his forehead down his cheek. The police arrested Mr. Hicks, who identified himself in some of the video but who claimed falsely and contrary to the video evidence that another individual had shot and killed Mr. Rivera-Rubert.
Office of the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Dec. 5, 2023
Re: Marco Hicks Guilty Plea
On Monday, December, 4, 2023, Mr. Hicks pleaded guilty as charged to first-degree murder. Judge Joseph C. Lindsey accepted Mr. Hicks’s plea pursuant to a plea agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Judge Lindsey may sentence Mr. Hicks to an active sentence of up to 35 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement the Commonwealth agreed to dismiss a charge of using a firearm in the commission of murder. Mr. Hicks is scheduled for sentencing on March 15, 2024.
“Marco Hicks walked up and executed his friend for no apparent reason and then blamed his crime on someone else,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi, “Thanks to video camera footage from multiple businesses, the assistance of a Good Samaritan, and high-quality investigation by the Norfolk Police, our case was strong enough that Mr. Hicks chose to plead guilty to first-degree murder rather than face trial. I extend my condolences to Mr. Rivera- Rubert’s family and my appreciation to the citizens and officers who did the hard work to help us hold Mr. Hicks accountable.”
Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Emily A. Woodley prosecuted Mr. Hicks’s case on behalf of the Commonwealth, and Norfolk Police Investigators Peter Kolb and Kyle Austin led the investigation.