Two Adams County men will spend decades behind bars after being convicted of second-degree murder in two separate cases.

Hayden Banks, 33, and Gregory Thomas, 38, were involved in two different Adams County murders. They were both sentenced on Friday, according to a press release by 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason.

Banks shot and killed David Islas inside the victim’s motel room at the Venture Inn along North Pecos Street in Adams County on March 15, 2022, according to the press release.

The two began fighting over a counterfeit $100 bill. When Islas tried to shut the door of his motel room, Banks shot him through the heart.

An Adams County Jury found Banks guilty of second-degree murder on June 30. A judge sentenced him to 40 years in the Department of Corrections on Thursday, according to the release.

“The defendant egregiously and unnecessarily took another man’s life — and he will now have to pay the consequences,” Mason said in the release.

In the Thomas case, a sheriff’s deputy found a body in a trashcan inside a storage unit at Free Up Storage facility along Devonshire Street in unincorporated Adams County on May 20, 2021. The unit belonged to Thomas. The victim was 21-year-old Lavanya Jain.

Thomas was apprehended in Washington.

He later claimed that he shot Jain in self-defense on March 19, 2021, and then hid her body inside the storage unit.

Thomas pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on May 19, 2023. A judge sentenced Thomas to 48 years in the Department of Corrections Thursday, according to the release.

Mason called Thomas’ actions “absolutely abhorrent.”

“Both of these deaths were entirely avoidable,” he said, “and they are yet another example of the cost of gun violence in our community.”