Rene Villanueva Soto, 37, a male of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, was found shot in the early morning darkness of Sunday, August 31, 2025, after Columbus police were dispatched around 3:35–3:37 a.m. to the 700 block of Stelzer Road near East 7th Avenue. Officers discovered two people with gunshot wounds; both were rushed by medics to a nearby hospital, where Rene Villanueva Soto, 37, male, was pronounced dead, and the second victim was listed in stable condition.
The Columbus Division of Police opened a homicide investigation as daylight crept over the East Side, asking anyone with information to come forward.
In the hours that followed, the corridor along Stelzer Road bore the quiet aftermath—crime-scene tape fluttering in a stray breeze, investigators combing for shell casings and the faintest threads that might explain why Rene Villanueva Soto, 37, male, never came home. Local outlets named him as the man who died in the double shooting and noted that the surviving victim’s injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, a fragile balance between loss and endurance that often marks these early investigations. Community reports reflected shock and a call for justice as neighbors absorbed the news.
By week’s end, loved ones gathered details for services and a final journey. Obituaries recorded that Rene Villanueva Soto, 37, male, died at Grant Medical Center that Sunday and that family and friends planned a visitation and service at Jerry Spears Funeral Home, with burial to follow in Mexico. Online memorial pages and gun-violence registries echoed his name, stitching together a somber ledger of time, place, and the human weight of the loss.
Detectives continued to work the case. As of the initial public statements and subsequent coverage, authorities had not announced any arrests, and no suspect information had been released. The investigation remained active, with police urging tips to the Homicide Unit and Central Ohio Crime Stoppers as they sought answers for the death of Rene Villanueva Soto, 37, male, and clarity about what unfolded before dawn on Stelzer Road.
