Adre Baroz pleaded guilty in February 2024 to murdering five people in Colorado's San Luis Valley in the late summer and fall of 2020. He was 29. Known around Alamosa as "Psycho," he had a long criminal record and was on the radar of local police before any of the deaths came to light. The case broke open in Conejos County on November 10, 2020, during a search connected with stolen vehicles and equipment. Nine days later federal agents arrested him at a motel in Gallup, New Mexico.
Prosecutors said the killings took place between August 25 and November 13, 2020. The dead were Selena Esquibel and Shayla Hammel of Alamosa, according to The Gazette, Myron Martinez of Del Norte, Korina Arroyo of Monte Vista, and Xavier Zeven Garcia of Saguache. Four other men were charged in connection with the case, among them his older brother, and all four later pleaded guilty.
In a hearing set for May 3, 2024, District Judge Michael Gonzales sentenced Baroz to five consecutive life sentences. The judge called him "pure evil" and said he had never used those words before in a criminal case, KRDO reported.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) gives Baroz's date of birth as October 28, 1994. State corrections records list him as being from Sanford, a small town in Conejos County, The Colorado Sun reported in November 2020; KRDO placed Sanford about 25 miles north of the New Mexico border. By the time of his arrest, police and the press described him as an Alamosa man.
He had been in trouble with the law since he was 19, according to The Gazette. In early 2014 he was arrested in Alamosa for a parole violation, and a couple of months later for assault. In 2015 he was held on a charge of second-degree assault on a peace officer, and attempted several times to escape from jail. The Colorado Sun reported that his record included convictions for assaulting a police officer, theft, attempted escape and possession of contraband. He was in prison from March 2016 until November 2018 and then on parole, according to a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections.
In January 2019 he was held for investigation of a sexual assault in which the victim was allegedly drugged. The district attorney's office dismissed that case, The Gazette reported.
On September 25, 2020, he was a passenger in a car that police in Alamosa pulled over. According to The Colorado Sun, officers reported finding more than a quarter pound of suspected methamphetamine and five guns. He told them he was leaving town and that his belongings were in the car. As a convicted felon he was barred from having firearms, and he faced separate drug and weapons charges in Alamosa when the murder investigation began.
CBS Colorado later described him as a small-town gang leader who called himself "Psycho," helped by his brother and three loyal gang members. Officials described one of the men later charged in the case as a gang member, 9NEWS reported. The gang's name has not been reported.
Selena Esquibel was 19 and lived in Alamosa. The CBI gives her date of birth as October 1, 2000. Her mother reported her missing on September 3, 2020. CBS Colorado reported that she was last heard from on August 31. The first criminal complaint against Baroz put her death between August 30 and September 4.
Xavier Zeven Garcia was born on July 6, 1996, according to the CBI. He was from Saguache County; a Colorado cold case listing kept by the CBI says he went missing from Crestone on October 16, 2020, and that few details of his disappearance were known. CBS Colorado gave the date he was reported missing as October 17. CBS Colorado reported in 2024 that his remains had not been found.
Myron Robert Martinez lived in Del Norte. The CBI gives his date of birth as November 15, 1982; The Colorado Sun noted that he would have turned 38 that November. A family member reported him missing to the Rio Grande County Sheriff's Office in early November 2020 and told investigators they had not been in touch with him since late October. According to arrest affidavits described by 9NEWS, his last known contact was a Facebook message to Adre Baroz on October 27, 2020.
Shayla Jenna Hammel was Martinez's girlfriend. The CBI gives her date of birth as November 3, 1986, and describes her as from Saguache. A family member reported her missing to the Saguache County Sheriff's Office in late November 2020, saying they had not heard from her since late October.
Korina Arroyo was from Monte Vista. The CBI gives her date of birth as August 30, 1989. She disappeared in late August 2020, the night before she was due to testify at a trial in Rio Grande County, according to The Gazette. CBS Colorado reported that she was scheduled to testify in a drug case against Baroz. "She went to bed and the next morning she was gone," a cousin told The Gazette in November 2020.
The press gave conflicting ages for most of the victims. Garcia was reported as 24 or 26, Martinez as 31 or 38, Hammel as 20 or 34, and Arroyo as 26, 31 or 32. Esquibel was reported as 19 in most accounts and as 20 in some 2021 reports.
Arrest affidavits and charging papers, as reported at the time, gave reasons for several of the killings.
Esquibel was killed, according to the arrest records, because Baroz believed she was telling people he had sexually assaulted her. CBS Colorado noted that the assault was not confirmed. A confidential informant told investigators that he saw Baroz kill her in late August or early September 2020, The Colorado Sun reported.
Garcia died while trying to collect money from Baroz, CBS Colorado reported in 2024.
According to a witness quoted in the affidavits, Martinez was killed in Alamosa after he came to buy drugs, and Hammel, who had been with him, was killed some days later. CBS Colorado reported that prosecutors alleged that Julius Baroz killed her at his brother's direction.
Arroyo, according to CBS Colorado, was due to testify against Baroz in a drug case.
On November 10, 2020, the Conejos County Sheriff's Office and the CBI served a search warrant near Los Sauces, a rural community about 20 miles southeast of Alamosa. They were looking for Baroz, who was wanted in connection with stolen vehicles and equipment, not for missing people, Conejos County Sheriff Garth Crowther told KKTV. Between November 10 and November 13, investigators near Los Sauces recovered the remains of three people, The Colorado Sun reported.
On November 18, Alamosa Police Chief Ken Anderson named Baroz as the suspect and warned the public not to approach him. "When I say he is a danger to the community, I really mean he is a danger to the community," Anderson said. Police called him armed and dangerous, and the CBI set up a tip line. Asked about other unsolved cases, police said they saw no connection to the disappearance of Suzanne Morphew in Chaffee County earlier that year.
At about 3 p.m. on November 19, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from Colorado Springs, working with the Alamosa police, found Baroz at a motel in Gallup, New Mexico. CBS Colorado later reported that he had five firearms with him. He was booked into the McKinley County Detention Center and returned to Colorado to face charges of first-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree kidnapping.
At first, investigators were careful about any link to the valley's missing persons cases. "We are not associating (the victims) with the missing persons cases at this time," they said on November 20. Asked whether they were dealing with a serial killer, they answered: "It's too early to categorize... we're not going to speculate about that." Identifying the dead, they said, could take weeks or months.
On December 5, 2020, the CBI announced that one of the three had been identified as Myron Martinez. The task force had not determined the cause and manner of his death but believed foul play was involved, and by then it had received more than 60 tips. On December 29 the CBI announced that the second was Shayla Hammel. The bureau said there would be no news conference and no further updates while the investigation was active.
The third was not formally identified in any official release through April 2021. Court papers unsealed in December 2020 accused Baroz of killing Esquibel, but authorities did not confirm the identification. The arrest affidavit also said that Baroz was under investigation in the deaths of people reported missing from Saguache and Rio Grande counties.
The investigation was led by Chief Anderson, who later became a division commander with the Alamosa County Sheriff's Office. Prosecutors said the Alamosa Police Department, the CBI, the ATF and forensic specialists compiled more than 50,000 documents. "This case had a huge impact not just on the city of Alamosa, but on the San Luis Valley," Anderson told The Gazette in 2024.
On December 10, 2020, District Attorney Robert Willett of the 12th Judicial District filed a nine-count complaint against Baroz, most of the counts relating to Esquibel's disappearance. Besides first-degree murder and kidnapping, the counts included witness intimidation and tampering with a deceased body, covering conduct between August 30 and November 6. Baroz waived his formal hearing and appeared by video from the Alamosa County jail before Judge Michael Gonzales, who would hear the case to its end. The prosecutor, Fred Johnson, was on loan from the Boulder County District Attorney's office. Baroz was represented by David Lipka of Colorado Springs. Willett had lost his primary that June and was about to be replaced by Alonzo Payne, The Gazette noted.
On January 18, 2021, Alamosa police arrested Julius Anthony Baroz, Adre's older brother, and CJ Walter Dominguez, both of Alamosa. Julius Baroz was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with deceased human remains in Martinez's death and held on $250,000 bond. Dominguez was charged with tampering with deceased human remains, accessory to first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping, and held on $100,000 bond. The next day prosecutors charged Adre Baroz with two more counts of first-degree murder and two of tampering, for the deaths of Martinez and Hammel.
Francisco Ramirez had been arrested in Pueblo on December 11, 2020, on unrelated charges. A federal criminal complaint said an informant had told investigators that he was an accessory to the killings, 9NEWS and Denver7 reported. On March 8, 2021, a state warrant was issued for his arrest on three counts of tampering with deceased human remains and accessory after the fact, and one count of tampering with physical evidence, tied to the deaths of Martinez, Esquibel and Garcia. On the same day the CBI announced the charges against Ramirez, it announced that Adre Baroz had been charged with first-degree murder and tampering in Garcia's death.
On April 26, 2021, the district attorney's office charged Baroz with the first-degree murder of Korina Arroyo, along with tampering with deceased human remains and first-degree assault. It was the fifth murder charge against him. He remained in the Alamosa County jail without bond.
Baroz at one point pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, then withdrew that plea, The Gazette reported. While he awaited trial, he was moved to the Pueblo County jail on a courtesy hold for Alamosa County. There, in 2022 and 2023, he assaulted two detention deputies and another inmate; one of the 2023 assaults seriously injured a deputy, the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office said. He was later moved to another county's jail.
Dominguez was the first of the co-defendants to be sentenced. He pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a deceased human body and in early 2023 was sentenced to 12 years in the Department of Corrections, CBS Colorado reported.
In February 2024, Adre Baroz, Julius Baroz and Francisco Ramirez pleaded guilty at a single hearing in Alamosa that lasted less than two hours. Adre Baroz pleaded guilty to all 13 counts against him: five counts of first-degree murder, five of tampering with a deceased human body, first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree kidnapping. The special prosecutor was Fred Johnson, by then chief trial deputy district attorney of the 20th Judicial District in Boulder.
Julius Baroz pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in Martinez's death, according to The Gazette, which reported that the charge carried 16 to 25 years in prison and five years of mandatory parole; a tampering charge against him was dismissed. Ramirez pleaded guilty to three counts of tampering with a deceased human body, and Judge Gonzales advised him that he would serve eight years in prison.
Sentencing for both brothers was set for May 3, 2024, at the Alamosa County Courthouse, with the victims' families able to address the court. Judge Gonzales sentenced Adre Baroz to five consecutive life sentences, with further sentences on the assault, kidnapping and tampering counts. Calling him "pure evil," the judge said he had never used those words in a criminal case.
District Attorney Anne Kelly, a former Boulder County prosecutor appointed and later elected to lead the 12th Judicial District, called the case "quite extraordinary" for a rural community. She said that no sentence could replace what the families had lost and that she hoped the sentences would bring some measure of justice after nearly four years of prosecution. Several Boulder County prosecutors had handled the cases, and Kelly credited them with winning convictions against all three men, KRDO reported.
Julius Baroz was sentenced at the same hearing to 25 years in the Department of Corrections, with credit for more than 1,200 days already served. Ramirez received three eight-year prison terms, according to CBS Colorado and The Colorado Sun; KRDO reported his sentence as 24 years.
A week later, on May 10, 2024, Baroz was sentenced in Pueblo County for the jail assaults. He had pleaded guilty to the attacks on the two deputies and the inmate, and the court imposed the maximum of 12 years, to run on top of his life sentences. "Today's sentencing was a matter of principle because we know Mr. Baroz is going to spend the rest of his life in prison," Pueblo County Sheriff David J. Lucero said. He added that he was very pleased the district attorney's office had taken the cases seriously.
In May 2024 Baroz was serving his sentences in the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
The sexual assault that, according to the affidavit, led to Esquibel's death was not confirmed, and the 2019 sexual assault case against Baroz was dismissed.
In 2024 CBS Colorado reported that Garcia's remains had still not been found.
The plea entered by Julius Baroz was described differently by different outlets: conspiracy to commit murder (The Gazette, 9NEWS, The Colorado Sun), criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder (KRDO) and a single murder count (CBS Colorado). The allegation that he killed Hammel came from prosecutors, as reported by CBS Colorado.
The dates on which Martinez and Hammel were reported missing differ by a day or two between the CBI releases and later reports, and the victims' ages vary widely from one report to the next.
October 28, 1994: Adre Jordan Baroz is born.
2014 to 2015: arrests in Alamosa for a parole violation and assault; held on a charge of second-degree assault on a peace officer; escape attempts.
March 2016 to November 2018: in prison, then on parole.
January 2019: held in a sexual assault investigation; the case is dismissed.
August 25, 2020: start of the period in which prosecutors placed the killings.
Late August 2020: Korina Arroyo disappears the night before she is due to testify.
August 31, 2020: Selena Esquibel is last heard from; her mother reports her missing on September 3.
September 25, 2020: drugs and five guns reported found in a car in which Baroz is a passenger.
October 16 or 17, 2020: Xavier Zeven Garcia goes missing.
October 27, 2020: Myron Martinez's last known contact, a message to Baroz.
November 2020: Martinez and Shayla Hammel are reported missing.
November 10 to 13, 2020: the remains of three people are recovered near Los Sauces.
November 18, 2020: police name Baroz as the suspect.
November 19, 2020: arrested in Gallup, New Mexico.
December 5 and 29, 2020: the CBI identifies Martinez and Hammel.
December 10, 2020: first complaint filed, mostly concerning Esquibel.
January 18 and 19, 2021: Julius Baroz and CJ Walter Dominguez arrested; Adre Baroz charged in the deaths of Martinez and Hammel.
March 2021: Francisco Ramirez charged; Baroz charged in Garcia's death.
April 26, 2021: Baroz charged with Arroyo's murder, the fifth.
2022 and 2023: assaults on two deputies and an inmate in the Pueblo County jail.
Early 2023: Dominguez, who pleaded guilty to tampering, is sentenced to 12 years.
February 2024: Adre Baroz pleads guilty to all 13 counts; Julius Baroz and Ramirez also plead guilty.
May 3, 2024 (hearing date set): five consecutive life sentences; Julius Baroz receives 25 years.
May 10, 2024: 12 more years for the Pueblo County jail assaults.