An Española man admitted to fatally shooting his girlfriend on the day of their son’s birthday, according to Española Police.
Jasmine Gaytan, 20, of Española, died July 17 at Española Hospital after being shot in the neck around 6 p.m. the same day, Sgt. Christian Lopez said. The bullet entered the right side of her neck and exited her left shoulder blade, court documents state.
Lopez said the shooting occurred in the bedroom of a house on C De Baca Circle in the Apple Valley public housing neighborhood where Gaytan and her boyfriend Leroy Fresquez Jr. were living with Fresquez’s mother, Joyce.
Fresquez Jr., 20, told police at least three versions of what happened the night of the shooting, according to court documents.
Fresquez Jr. initially said he was in a separate room from Gaytan when he heard a gunshot, went into the bedroom and found her lying on the bed holding her neck. In a separate version, Fresquez Jr. claimed he actually saw Gaytan falling to the floor as the gun went off. Fresquez Jr. finally told Lopez, “I did it, I shot her,” according to court documents.
Lopez refused to say what motive Fresquez Jr. gave for his actions. Fresquez Jr. told police he was “messing with” the weapon when it just went off. He also told police that a man identified only by his alias Boxer removed the weapon from the scene, court documents state.
Gaytan’s sister Ebelin Naranjo said she heard that Boxer, whose real name is James Maes, witnessed the shooting and was told by the suspect’s mother, Joyce, to hide the weapon. The gun still hasn’t been recovered, and police have so far identified it only as a handgun.
Fresquez Jr. and Gaytan had dated for six years, dropped out of Española Middle School and had a young son together named Ian, Lopez and Naranjo said. The day Gaytan was shot was Ian’s third birthday, Naranjo said.
Pamela Montoya, a next-door neighbor of the Fresquezes, said the shooting came as a shock because the couple seemed to be doing well. She remembered seeing them lighting fireworks for Ian to watch on Fourth of July. Fresquez Jr. had grown up with Montoya’s own sons and to her was just “one of the boys.”
Naranjo and Gaytan’s aunt, Graciela Rodriguez, remember the couple’s relationship very differently. Naranjo said that about two weeks before the shooting, Fresquez Jr. shot at Gaytan’s parents’ house while she and Ian were there. Police were called but couldn’t find the residence, Naranjo said.
“I always told her not to go back with him because he would always hit her; he was always abusing her and saying, ‘If I can’t have you nobody can,’” a friend of Gaytan’s who didn’t want to be identified said. “He hit her so many (expletive) times and I hope he (expletive) rots in hell. Jasmine was the most beautiful and the sweetest girl anybody would ever know.”
Fresquez Jr. and his father, Leroy Fresquez Sr., were suspects in a 2005 shooting at Sonic restaurant in which a man received a non-fatal stomach wound, Lopez said. However, because the victims in that case were uncooperative, the District Attorney dropped the charges against the pair, Lopez said.
In 2008, Fresquez Jr. was arrested for speeding on Railroad Avenue without a driver’s license, and being in possession of marijuana, a pipe and a .9 mm pistol. The charges were later dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case couldn’t be brought to a grand jury. Assistant District Attorney Tim Hasson didn’t return calls for comment.
Fresquez is now being held at McKinley County Jail in Gallup on a $1 million cash-only bond. The open murder count is used because authorities haven’t decided whether to charge him with first or second degree murder or a lesser charge such as manslaughter.
At his arraignment Monday by video at Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court in Española, Joyce Fresquez told Judge Joe Madrid that Gaytan’s family has been threatening her family.
Naranjo said that when Lopez told Gaytan’s family Fresquez Jr. admitted to killing her, they became enraged. The news was especially hard because while both families were at the hospital waiting to see if Gaytan would survive, Fresquez Jr. was hugging Gaytan’s aunts and uncles and saying he didn’t understand how anyone could hurt her.
“Jasmine would always tell me she wouldn’t want to call the cops (on Fresquez Jr.) because she didn’t want her son to grow up without a dad,” Gaytan’s friend said. “But now her son’s going to grow up without a mom.”