ALTUS -- A man who faced a charge of first degree murder in the stabbing death of one man and assault in the stabbing of another man on New Year's morning, 2002, in the parking lot of an Altus nightclub was convicted Tuesday of a lesser charge of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

Luis Gallardo, 40, pleaded no contest to the charge and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with the last seven years suspended.

The charge was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled.

During a fight that broke out in the parking lot between Tejanos Club and El Dos D'Oros Club in the 1200 block of West Broadway, Gallardo stabbed Mario Cuellar once behind the left ear and five times in the back with a butterfly knife, according to an affidavit filed in District Court. Gallardo also stabbed Mario Cuellar's uncle, Francisco Cuellar, twice in the back and once in the left shoulder. Mario Cuellar was pronounced dead on arrival at Jackson County Memorial Hospital. Francisco Cuellar recovered from his injuries and on Jan. 25 of that year positively identified Gallardo in a photo lineup as the person who stabbed him and Mario Cuellar.

Assistant District Attorney Jan Warren said that interviews with defense witnesses, who recently "changed the complexion" of what they were going to testify, made her feel uncomfortable with pursuing the murder charge.

Also, she said, witnesses came forward to say that they didn't see any blood on Gallardo when he went to the Lincoln Manor neighborhood after the altercation.

"Count 1 (first degree murder) was a problem to begin with because of Francisco being the only one to admit to seeing any kind of altercation," she said. "If we had gone forward, and he had been found not guilty, that would have been it."

Warren said she is hopeful, since there is no statute of limitations on murder charges, that "someone with a conscience" will come forward sometime during Gallardo's stay in Oklahoma's prison system to present the testimony needed to make the murder charge stick.

After the New Year's incident, Gallardo fled to Texas and was arrested in Houston for failure to register as a sexual offender and was sentenced to four years. He was returned to Altus and booked into the Jackson County Jail on Feb. 26 of this year after serving two years on that sentence.

Gallardo had been released in April 2001 from a Texas prison, where he was serving a 20-year sentence for sexual assault for which he was convicted in April 1984.