Norfolk man pleads guilty in murder of friend who was shot in the head in 2022

Marco Hicks pleaded guilty in Norfolk Circuit Court on Monday to first-degree murder for shooting his friend, Michael Rivera-Rubert.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hicks, 30, faces an active sentence of up to 35 years in prison.

Hicks is scheduled for sentencing on March 15, 2024.

According to court documents, Hicks, Rivera-Rubert and several friends went to a nightclub in the City of Norfolk the night of Sept. 3, 2022, parking their vehicles at an overflow parking lot in a strip mall in the 800 block of North Military Highway.

The group had returned to the strip mall parking lot by 2 a.m. on Sept. 4. Surveillance video showed that the friends were chatting with one another, apparently uneventfully, for about 20 minutes, when Hicks went to his pickup truck, got a pistol, walked up to Rivera-Rubert, put the pistol nearly to Rivera-Rubert’s head, and shot him through the head one time, killing him nearly instantly.

After Hicks shot and killed Rivera-Rubert, 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 Rivera-Rubert, but there was nothing he could do.

Norfolk Police arrived at the scene soon afterward and found 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 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.

Police arrested 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 Rivera-Rubert.

“Marco Hicks walked up and executed his friend for no apparent reason and then blamed his crime on someone else,” Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi said. “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.”