Top inset: Jacob Anthony Bustamantez (KSBW/YouTube). Bottom inset: Faith Elizabeth Valenzuela (GoFundMe). Background: The location where Valenzuela was discovered mortally wounded in a crashed car in Salinas, California. (KSBW/YouTube).
A California man has admitted to the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, found mortally wounded in a crashed car, days after confiding about calling off all contact with him.
Jacob Anthony Bustamantez, 24, pleaded guilty last Wednesday to second-degree murder in the death of Faith Elizabeth Valenzuela, 29, Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni announced in a news release.
The events leading to the bloodshed started on July 5, 2022, at 2:53 a.m., when Bustamantez, reportedly identified as “Ace” in Valenzuela’s phone, texted her to pick him up for a ride, prosecutors said. She picked him up near downtown Salinas, more than 100 miles south of San Francisco.
Seventeen minutes after he first texted her for the ride, Bustamantez used a 9 mm semiautomatic ghost gun and shot her from the passenger seat as she was driving. The car crashed into a wooden fence behind a house. Bustamantez fled, ditching a pair of cotton gloves, a magazine with ammunition, and the gun, officials said.
Five minutes later, a police squad car leaving a hospital came across the single-car collision in the area of Natividad Road and Lunsford Drive. Inside the car, slumped over the front, officers found an unconscious Valenzuela with gunshot wounds, police said in a news release. She died an hour later at a hospital.
Authorities quickly linked Bustamantez to the murder after finding the gun on the roof of a nearby residence and through DNA. Investigators also learned about the couple’s prior romantic relationship.
In the DA’s news release, prosecutors cited witnesses who said they were aware that Valenzuela had maintained contact with the defendant and that she confided in others her wishes to end all contact with him in the days before she was killed.
Bustamantez was arrested two days after the shooting. Authorities said he initially denied being in contact with Valenzuela before ultimately admitting to shooting and killing her, authorities said.
The cheerleading coach for Everett Alvarez High School left behind a then 10-year-old daughter, her GoFundMe said.
“Faith’s bright smile and kind heart will be missed dearly,” the site said. “We are starting this account to help raise money for Faith’s daughter and family to assure they can continue to live on in the spirit of her mother.”
Bustamantez faces 35 years to life in prison when he is set to be sentenced on Oct. 2.
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