The mother of an 18-year-old accused of shooting a man at a junction of Denver last month sold the murder weapon on Facebook, according to an arrest statement.
Aaron Roybal, 52, was deadly shot in the head at South Sheridan Boulevard and West Wyoming Place around 9:11 pm on January 12, said the Denver police. Two weeks after Roybal’s death, 18-year-old Giovanni Gonzalez was arrested and accused of murder in the first degree, according to the court reports.
Gonzales and Roybal both visited a cannabis pharmacy on Sheridan, just a few minutes before the shooting, researchers said in the arrest.
Surveillance video in the store shows Roybal and a woman who is identified as the mother of Gonzalez who enters the store. Before he entered, the mother of Gonzez left the backseat of a car whose security images revealed to be powered by her 18-year-old son, according to the declaration of arrest.
The woman and Roybal both spent a few minutes in the store, but were on separate counters and checked out with individual registers without ever communicating, researchers said.
While Gonzalez, a white Honda pilot, pull out his parking lot, Roybal did. Roybal stopped gonzalez to maneuver from the tight parking lot and left a minute later.
The sworn explanation said that Gonzalez left the parking lot on Wyoming and then turned to Sheridan again. When Roybal stopped at the intersection of Sheridan and Wyoming for a red light, the police said that Gonzalez was pulling a U-turn and Sheridan was back to Roybal’s car.
That is when Roybal got out of his car and was shot, suddenly collapsed to the ground when Gonzalez fled the scene, according to the statement.
Officers who responded to the shooting only found Roybal’s body and a single housing of 9 mm.
According to the declaration of the arrest, officers were able to identify the mother of Gonzezez and trace her into an Englewood address after obtaining an order to tap and follow her phone. Four days after the shooting they followed her to a second address and looked open at the garage door and unveiled the missing suspicious vehicle parked in it.
The woman refused to talk to the police, but detectives grabbed her phone and found Facebook reports that showed that she was sold the gun to a man in Thornton, according to the statement.
Researchers also found photos of Gonzalez who held the gun and messages she had sent to the buyer describing how her son “wants it to disappear,” said the statement.
When the Denver police recovered the gun, a forensic team discovered that it was an exact match for the bullet housing found at the crime scene, according to the statement.
No charges were filed against the mother, but Gonzalez was then planned for the court for a provisional hearing on 27 February, according to judicial information.
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