John Jefferson
Top inset: Geano Eugene Chavez (GoFundMe). Bottom inset: Ryan Trujillo-Falcon (Jefferson County Sheriff). Background: The cemetery in Colorado where Chavez was killed (KDVR).
A Colorado man celebrating the birthday of a friend at his gravesite was shot and killed by a fellow mourner when the victim said he started feeling sick and said he had to vomit on a nearby grave.
Ryan Trujillo-Falcon, 22, faces charges of first-degree murder, assault, and unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon in the death of Geano Eugene Chavez, 20, authorities said.
“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 Denver Fox affiliate KDVR. “This is the first for me in my career that we’ve been dispatched to a cemetery that was in reference to the shooting of a person who ended up dying. The cemetery is a place that comforts people. Oftentimes, it’s a place to go visit someone that you’ve lost, but it’s not typically a place of violence.”
In a statement to KDVR, the cemetery said, “We are saddened by the circumstances of the night of August 17. This type of situation is highly unusual at a funeral home or cemetery. We are cooperating fully with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office investigation, as safety of the families we serve is of the utmost importance to us.”
The shooting happened on Saturday at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, just before 11 p.m. after the cemetery was closed, authorities said. The suspect and victim were among a group of mourners who’d gathered to celebrate their friend who had been shot and killed two years earlier and had been buried at the cemetery.
As family members and friends were gathered around the grave, Chavez told Trujillo-Falcon he was starting to feel sick and needed to vomit, according to an affidavit outlining the allegations.
Trujillo-Falcon told Chavez to go to the street if he was going to get sick, but Chavez refused and “was going to vomit on the grave next to him,” the affidavit said.
An argument began between Chavez and a woman with them at the cemetery. The fight escalated when the suspect pulled a gun from his waistband, struck the woman in the head with the butt of the gun, then fired a shot at Chavez, hitting him in the chest, the affidavit said.
Trujillo-Falcon then stashed the weapon by a tree and hid in the cemetery until police arrived and took him into custody after a search of the grounds, the document said.
Chavez died at a hospital. The woman hit with the butt of the gun was treated for non-life-threatening wounds at a hospital 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 started to carry a gun after his friend, whose gravesite he had been visiting that night, was shot two years earlier, the affidavit said.
Chavez’s brother said on GoFundMe that his life was taken by a person he called a friend.
“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 exceedingly talented as an artist with a passion for music. You can bet you’ll catch Geano hitting up the basketball court & watching football. A recent graduate as well, he was definitely going places. Tragically Geano knew in that moment as he took his last breath he sadly wasn’t going to make it. His death hit his loved ones like a train as it was so unexpected and so unfortunate.”
Trujillo-Falcon is being held on $1 million bond at the Jefferson County Jail, online records show. Details about his next court date were not available.
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