Top image: Geano Eugene Chavez (GoFundMe). Bottom image: Ryan Trujillo-Falcon (Jefferson County Sheriff). Background: The Colorado cemetery where Chavez was killed (KDVR).
A Colorado man celebrating a friend’s birthday at his grave was shot and killed by another mourner when the victim said he felt sick and vomited on a nearby grave.
Ryan Trujillo-Falcon, 22, is charged with first-degree murder, assault and illegally carrying a concealed weapon in connection with the killing of 20-year-old Geano Eugene Chavez, authorities said.
“These people all knew each other. They went there together to visit the grave of a person they all knew who had just had a birthday,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jacki Kelley told Denver Fox affiliate KDVR. “This is the first time in my career that we have been dispatched to a cemetery that was associated with the shooting of a person who ultimately died. The cemetery is a place that brings people comfort. Often it is a place where you visit someone you have lost, but it is not usually a place of violence.”
In a statement to KDVR, the cemetery said, “We are saddened by the circumstances that occurred on the night of August 17. Such situations are highly unusual in a funeral home or cemetery. We are fully cooperating with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation as the safety of the families we serve is of the utmost importance to us.”
The shooting occurred Saturday at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, shortly before 11 p.m., after the cemetery had been closed, authorities said. The suspect and the victim were among a group of mourners who had gathered to honor their friend who was shot and buried at the cemetery two years earlier.
As family members and friends gathered around the grave, Chavez Trujillo-Falcon said he felt sick and was vomiting, according to an affidavit outlining the allegations.
Trujillo-Falcon told Chavez to go outside if he felt sick, but Chavez refused and “wanted to vomit on the grave next to him,” the affidavit states.
At the cemetery, an argument broke out between Chavez and a woman who was accompanying him. The fight escalated when the suspect pulled a gun from his waistband, hit the woman in the head with the butt of the gun and then fired a shot at Chavez, hitting him in the chest, the affidavit states.
Trujillo-Falcon then hid the gun next to a tree and hid in the cemetery until police arrived and arrested him after searching the grounds, the document says.
Chavez died at the hospital. The woman who was hit with the rifle butt was treated at the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and released, officials said.
The suspect later admitted to shooting Chavez, that he did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and that he had started carrying a gun after his friend, whose grave he had visited that night, was shot two years earlier, the affidavit said.
Chavez’s brother said on GoFundMe that someone he called a friend took his life.
“No, Geano was the definition of a true friend,” he wrote. “He would give you the shirt off his back, no questions asked. Geano was an extraordinarily talented artist with a passion for music. You can bet you’ll find Geano on the basketball court and watching football. Plus, he was a recent graduate and definitely up to something. Tragically, Geano knew the moment he took his last breath that, unfortunately, he wouldn’t make it. His death hit his loved ones like a blow as it was so unexpected and so unfortunate.”
Trujillo-Falcon is being held in the Jefferson County Jail on $1 million bail, online records show. Details of his next court date were not available.
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