Joseph Andrus, 30, a male of Hispanic/Latino heritage, left home before dawn on August 7, 2025 to drive for Uber in Albuquerque, pursuing a plan to seed a startup with the extra income he earned behind the wheel. Around 3 a.m., police were called to the 400 block of Merlida Street SW, where they found Andrus shot multiple times and left by the roadside; his vehicle had been taken.
He had been working less than a day on the platform, a detail that would come to haunt his family as they gathered the following week to celebrate what would have been his 31st birthday and to hold a candlelight vigil in his memory.
Investigators quickly focused on an 18-year-old named Sheliky Sanchez. According to a criminal complaint and subsequent news reports, Sanchez had asked his girlfriend to order him an Uber, rode with Andrus for a short while, then told him to pull over before shooting him and fleeing in the car. The vehicle was later recovered outside the girlfriend's residence. In interviews with detectives, Sanchez allegedly said he picked a driver “to let off some steam,” even remarking that he didn't “go for good people” and that Andrus seemed like one. He initially denied involvement and claimed he bought the car for cash, but later admitted to the killing, according to multiple outlets that reviewed the complaint.
Within days, prosecutors charged Sanchez with murder, armed robbery, and tampering with evidence; a judge ordered he remain in custody while the case proceeded. In mid-August, authorities disclosed that during questioning Sanchez also claimed responsibility for three additional homicides from when he was younger, statements that remained under investigation with no extra counts filed at that time. By the following month, federal prosecutors had taken the case and a grand jury indicted Sanchez for carjacking resulting in death, exposing him to the most severe penalties available under federal law. Through it all, family and friends described Andrus as kind and ambitious—newly a college graduate, working nights to build something of his own—while the city mourned another life cut short by sudden roadside violence.
