In the late hours of a Tuesday in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a meeting in the parking lot of the Ridge Apartments near Tramway Boulevard NE and Copper Avenue took a tragic turn, ending the life of 17-year-old Angelo Tafoya. A male senior at Manzano High School, Angelo was lured to the location on September 16, 2025, under the pretense of a gun and drug exchange.
What was supposed to be a transaction quickly escalated into a deadly robbery, cutting short a young life and leaving a community in mourning. First responders arrived to find Angelo gravely wounded from multiple gunshots. Despite their efforts, he did not survive the attack. While police reports list the date of the shooting as September 16, his family's obituary notes his passing on September 17.
The investigation into Angelo's death moved swiftly, with detectives identifying two teenage suspects: 18-year-old Austin Olimb and 17-year-old Ezekiel Ulibarri. According to police, the pair had orchestrated the meeting with the intention of robbing Angelo of his firearm. During the confrontation, Olimb allegedly fired multiple shots at Tafoya. In a chilling admission to detectives, Olimb stated that after initially shooting Angelo twice, he fired two additional rounds "to double check" that he was dead. The violent encounter, lasting only minutes, unfolded just steps away from apartment buildings and parked cars.
Within days, both suspects were in custody. Albuquerque police charged Austin Olimb with murder and other related offenses. His alleged accomplice, Ezekiel Ulibarri, was also detained and faced charges within the juvenile justice system, where he already had a history of prior cases. A judge ordered Ulibarri to remain in custody as the legal proceedings against him moved forward. Olimb was also held behind bars, facing additional charges from a separate incident that occurred just hours before the fatal shooting. The investigation revealed that the suspects fled the scene in a stolen blue Hyundai Elantra, and they were apprehended the following day in a different stolen vehicle, a red Hyundai Elantra, where authorities discovered two firearms. Both Olimb and Ulibarri face a litany of charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and armed robbery.
