In the early morning hours of a Tuesday in Clinton, Oklahoma, the life of Jesse Mendoza, a 32-year-old male and a proud member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe, was tragically cut short. Just before 12:30 a.m. on March 4, 2025, police were called to the Primavera Apartments on Hayes Avenue following reports of gunfire. Inside one of the apartments, they found that Jesse Mendoza had been shot in the abdomen.
He was rushed to Clinton Regional Hospital, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.
Investigators soon identified a suspect in the fatal shooting: 28-year-old Joseph Tyler Layton. Evidence began to paint a grim picture of a possible crime of passion, as it was revealed that Mendoza was in a relationship with Layton's ex-girlfriend, and the couple lived together at the apartment complex. The moments leading up to the shooting were partially captured by a Ring doorbell camera, which recorded a woman approaching the apartment with a man in a brown jacket and a black ski mask. Shortly after, the camera recorded Mendoza's distressed voice crying out, 'Joe, why'd you do that? Oh f***, I've been shot, call an ambulance!' In his final moments at the hospital, when asked who shot him, Mendoza reportedly uttered the name 'Joe'. This, along with interviews with two women at the hospital, led police to identify Layton as the alleged shooter.
With a first-degree murder charge filed and a felony arrest warrant issued, the manhunt for Joseph Tyler Layton began. It came to a decisive and violent end around 6 p.m. that same evening. Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers spotted Layton and initiated a traffic stop in the parking lot of a local business. The encounter quickly escalated, resulting in an officer-involved shooting. Layton, who was allegedly in possession of a handgun, was shot by the troopers. Despite attempts to provide life-saving measures by both troopers and medical personnel, Layton was pronounced dead at the scene. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has taken the lead on the investigation into Mendoza's homicide, while the Department of Public Safety is investigating the circumstances of the officer-involved shooting that ended the life of his suspected killer.
