Home invaders face 25-year prison terms

Two men who broke into a Shelbyville home and held three children at gunpoint will be spending the next 25 years behind bars following a pair of sentencing hearings this week.

The lengthy sentences were handed down against Jose Gomez and Wilson Palacio of Smyrna on Monday.

Gomez was found guilty of three counts of aggravated robbery and a single count of aggravated burglary following a trial in September while Palacio pleaded guilty to the same charges several days later.

"This is about the worst of the worst," assistant district attorney Mike Randles said about the case. "If there's one place left on earth that people should feel safe, it's in their own home, and then the victims were children ... who were held at gunpoint."

"That's the type of offender that deserves the strongest sentence," Randles said. Randles was also assisted in the two sentencing hearings by assistant district attorney Richard Cawley.

Gomez and Palacio had entered a home on Riverview Drive in January while three children, who were home from school on a snow day, sat on a couch watching television.

As Palacio held a gun on the children, telling them not to be afraid, Gomez allegedly took jewelry off the victims and from throughout the home along with their cell phones and two video cameras.

The children were told to go into a bathroom and later told police they saw the pair leave in a small, older model green two-door car.

Investigators with the Shelbyville Police Department said that the mother of one of the children is an independent jewelry dealer and had sold merchandise to the wife of Gomez.

The wife had also worked with the victim's mother in Smyrna, and Gomez had also attended a party last year with his wife at the victim's home and was identified in a group photo taken at the gathering, according to police.

Palacio was arrested by a SWAT team in Nashville while Gomez was taken into custody by Smyrna authorities. Palacio told investigators he received some money for the stolen jewelry from Gomez after he sold it at a Nashville pawn shop.

But while Palacio told investigators he did enter the home with Gomez, he claims he did not point the gun at the children, but rather "showed it to them," Randles said.