Top inset: Pamela Cabriales (GoFundMe). Bottom inset: Remi Cordova (KCNC). Background: The location where Cabriales was killed (KCNC).
A Colorado gang member who was 14 years old when he killed the mother of a young child with an assault rifle over a fender bender out on the street in broad daylight has learned his fate.
Remi Cordova was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years in the death of Pamela Cabriales, 32, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann announced on Thursday in a press release.
The defendant was convicted in November of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder, the latter charge related to a driver in the line of fire in a car behind Cabriales’ car. Cordova was charged and tried as an adult after being transferred from Juvenile Court to District Court due to the severity of the crime, prosecutors said.
“This sentence will ensure that Remi Cordova is held accountable and pays a significant price for his heinous crimes. Pamela Cabriales was a loving, joyful and hard-working young woman who would be with us today were it not for Mr. Cordova’s entirely senseless actions the night of the murder,” McCann said. “My thoughts continue to be with all those who knew and loved Pamela, especially her young son. I want to thank the prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates in my office, as well as the detectives with the Denver Police Department, for their outstanding work on this difficult case.”
Cordova, whose defense argued his traumatic childhood played a role, denied responsibility.
“I want you all to know I really feel for y’all, I understand completely … the pain that you guys feel,” he said to the victim’s family in court, according to local CBS affiliate KCNC. “But I cannot take responsibility for something that I did not do.”
The killing happened on Feb. 20, 2021, at a red light on Colfax Avenue and Interstate 25.
Cordova, a passenger in a car driven by another teen, Neshan Johnson, thought Cabriales had tapped their car from behind at a red light, the Denver Gazette reported, citing court documents.
“Can I bust on them?” the driver said Cordova asked him, according to court documents, the newspaper reported.
“Do what you gotta do, that’s on you,” Johnson replied, according to the court documents.
Johnson told police Cordova then got out of the car with an “AR15 and fired 15-20 shots into the car behind them,” according to court documents, local NBC affiliate KUSA reported.
Cabriales was hospitalized and died a few days later. The driver of a car directly behind Cabriales’ vehicle was uninjured in the shooting.
Alex Cabriales described in detail to local Fox affiliate KDVR his sister’s wounds, saying, “the whole top of her head was blown off. Her brain was exposed.”
“The community needs to know what these people did,” he said. “My sister was beautiful.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, a Denver cop saw the assailants’ vehicle the following day and recognized it from an incident at a McDonald’s, which involved shots being fired into the occupied restaurant. The officer pursued the car, which crashed, and the teens were eventually arrested after a search.
Cordova was a gang member with a juvenile criminal record.
He bragged to police about his “toy” — the AR-15 — and rising through the gang ranks, prosecutor Jacob Friedberg told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday, the Denver Post reported.
“The motivation here comes from a desire to rise up through the ranks of the gang world,” he told jurors. “It’s unfortunate that is how that world works.”
Johnson was sentenced to 35 years in prison in June 2023.
A GoFundMe page to help raise money so the victim’s son can go to college said, “a beautiful soul was the victim of a heinous crime.”
“Pamela Cabriales is an amazing human being and will always go out of her way to help those in need,” the page said. She will do anything to make sure her son is taken care of. She is an amazing mother, daughter, sister, auntie and friend.”
Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.
