A graveside argument turned deadly last weekend when a Colorado man shot and killed a member of a group of friends who had gathered to remember a dead man on his birthday.
The group of family and friends arrived at Crown Hill Cemetery in Jefferson County at about 8 p.m. on August 17 at the gravesite of a man who’d been shot and killed two years ago, according to an arrest affidavit.
Police were called about three hours later and found Geano Chavez, 20, with a gunshot wound. He was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
“These people were all known to each other. They went there together to visit the gravesite of someone that they all knew, who had just had a birthday,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesperson Jacki Kelley told KDVR.
Witnesses identified the shooter as Ryan Trujillo-Falcon, 22, and a search of the cemetery located him nearby where he was apparently hiding, the affidavit said. Trujillo-Falcon was taken into custody and told officers where he had stashed the gun he used to shoot Chavez.
Cemetery Shooting Affidavit (1) by kc wildmoon on Scribd
In custody, Trujillo-Falcon explained that Chavez had said he was feeling sick and needed to vomit. He said he got into a fight with Chavez and a woman at the scene when he told Chavez to leave the cemetery to throw up, first pistol-whipping the woman and then, ultimately, firing one shot into Chavez’s chest with the gun, which he had been concealing in his waistband.
He also admitted he didn’t have a concealed carry permit for the gun, which he’d been carrying since the friend whose gravesite he was visiting had been shot.
Trujillo-Falcon has been charged with murder, assault, and unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon.
