More than three-and-a-half years after the shocking murder of Martín Sean Godoy Nolan left the WJ community reeling with unanswered questions, the family and friends of Nolan finally found some closure. The case surrounding the 2021 murder of the former WJ student reached its conclusion with guilty verdicts for Keith Wesley Delcid-Palacios on charges of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, bringing justice to the beloved 21-year-old.
Nolan was a member of WJ’s class of 2018 when he left school due to his mother’s sickness. People in the community told FOX 5 DC Nolan was well-known and liked.
“[Nolan] crossed all ethnic-economic lines with his friendships,” father Kevin Nolan said to FOX 5 DC. “He stopped kids from being bullied. He hung out with special needs [students] at Walter Johnson just to make them feel part of [something].”
Nolan was found on Jan. 14, 2021 in a parked car at the Highland Elementary School parking lot after the police received a 911 call reporting the shooting. Upon arrival of the authorities, Nolan was pronounced dead at the scene. The body was then transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore to conduct an autopsy, where his death was officially ruled a homicide.
The police quickly started trying to piece together information about the events that occurred that morning. They found out that Nolan was hanging out in the Highland Elementary parking lot after attending a party with friends, a common occurrence amongst young people in the Wheaton area. Nolan was sitting in the driver’s seat with a friend in the passenger’s seat and had backed into a parking spot just before 5:40 a.m. This was when Delcid-Palacios went up to the open driver-side window and pistol-whipped Nolan. Nolan then had put the car in drive which Delcid-Palacios responded to with a death threat. Nolan proceeded to drive forward and Delcid-Palacios fired the gunshots that subsequently ended Nolan’s life. Nolan lost control of the vehicle and struck another car. The passenger of this car, whose name is unknown, fled. Delcid-Palacios fired towards the passenger as he was running away from the scene but the passenger was not hit.
By mid-2022, almost a year-and-a-half after the homicide, the police still had limited information and did not have the killer. In August 2022, the case was filed against Delcid-Palacios. Preliminary hearings against Delcid-Palacios started in October 2022 and proceedings went all the way until the criminal trial wrapped up on Sept. 26 of this year with a guilty verdict. Delcid-Palacios faced the potential of life in prison plus an additional 130 years on a sentencing hearing that was scheduled for Nov. 7, but the results of the hearing are currently unknown. After the guilty verdict, the State’s Attorney had some words in the Montgomery County Police Department’s press release about justice finally being served for Nolan.
“The level of violence exhibited by the defendant was outrageous,” States Attorney John McCarthy said. “We commend our prosecution team for seeing that justice was served in this matter despite challenges including witness intimidation.”
Witness intimidation was part of the reason police had trouble finding more information on the case. On Sept. 19, as the trial was wrapping up, the defendant’s brother, Jeffrey Delcid-Palacios, was arrested and charged with two counts of intimidating a witness and one count of obstruction of justice. He was held without bond in District Court but the case was closed on Nov. 15.
