On a summer morning in Brooklyn, the life of 33-year-old Tanya Collazo was tragically cut short. On August 22, 2015, in a basement apartment on Suydam Street near Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, she was fatally shot in the head. The moments that followed would paint a grim and chaotic picture of a domestic dispute turned deadly.
Earlier that night, Tanya had been socializing with family and friends. Sometime after midnight, she was joined by her on-and-off boyfriend, Bryan Gonzalez.
The couple left together around 5 a.m. and went to Gonzalez's apartment. A little over two hours later, at approximately 7:30 a.m., Gonzalez emerged from the apartment, shirtless and covered in blood, and ran into a nearby deli. He made a startling confession to an employee, stating, 'Call the police, I killed my girlfriend in the house by accident'. In a bizarre turn, he then attempted to arm himself with two knives from the deli's counter before a worker intervened, knocking one to the floor. Gonzalez fled back into the street with the smaller knife.
When police arrived at the Suydam Street apartment, they discovered Tanya Collazo inside the bedroom with a gunshot wound to her face. A loaded. 40-caliber pistol was found in the hallway just outside the room. Gonzalez claimed to the police that he had been playing with the handgun and it had discharged accidentally. However, the investigation also uncovered a significant quantity of narcotics within the residence. Police recovered over eight ounces of heroin and more than half an ounce of cocaine, along with drug paraphernalia, suggesting a drug processing operation.
Bryan Gonzalez, who was 34 at the time of the incident, was arrested and subsequently faced charges of murder, criminal possession of a weapon, and possession of a controlled substance. In March 2017, then 36-year-old Gonzalez pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the death of his girlfriend and a concurrent sentence of 12 years for the drug charge. The Acting Brooklyn District Attorney at the time, Eric Gonzalez, stated that the lengthy sentence was warranted to hold him accountable for a 'completely senseless shooting death'.
