Elias Tiberi, a 21-year-old man from Jemez Springs, New Mexico, died in the early morning hours of November 15, 2025, after a shooting in the parking lot of the Ohkay Owingeh Casino in Rio Arriba County. Shortly after 12:26 a.m., deputies from the Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Office responded to reports of a man lying wounded outside the casino, and New Mexico State Police investigators soon took over the case.
Tiberi was found suffering from a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene, his life ending in the dim light of the casino lot before dawn fully broke over the small community.
Investigators later pieced together a sequence of events largely captured on casino surveillance footage and supported by witness accounts. According to state police, three young men had gathered at a vehicle in the parking lot: Tiberi and another 21-year-old, Gerald Trujillo, were inside the car, while a third friend stood nearby outside. The group was reportedly consuming illegal narcotics when, at some point, Trujillo brandished a firearm inside the confined space of the vehicle. What may have begun as reckless bravado turned swiftly into a deadly situation as he began waving the weapon around in a careless manner, the muzzle crossing the space between the two men while their friend watched from just outside the car.
As the gun moved in his direction, Tiberi is said to have urged Trujillo to stop, trying to interrupt the escalating danger before it tipped into tragedy. When the weapon was pointed toward him, Tiberi attempted to push it away, an instinctive effort to protect himself and perhaps restore some sense of control inside the car. In those fraught seconds, with drugs in their system and nerves undoubtedly frayed, the gun went off. The round struck Tiberi in the upper body, critically wounding him. The third man, witnessing the chaos, ran toward the casino to alert security and seek help, but by the time authorities arrived, Tiberi had succumbed to his injuries where he fell in the parking lot.
What followed in the immediate aftermath only deepened the sense of disorder surrounding the shooting. Investigators say that after the gun discharged, Trujillo pulled Tiberi from the vehicle, leaving him in the lot before fleeing the scene in a red Ford Mustang. That decision turned a terrible accident into a crime scene marked not just by a fatal gunshot, but by flight and attempted concealment. For hours, law enforcement searched for the missing suspect while the parking lot remained cordoned off, its usual traffic replaced by flashing lights and investigators documenting every fragment of the night's events.
Later that same day, at approximately 12:45 p.m., as agents continued to look for him, Trujillo contacted authorities and turned himself in. He was taken into custody without further incident, ending the brief manhunt but not the questions that lingered over how a night among friends had transformed into a fatal shooting. New Mexico State Police subsequently announced that Trujillo had been charged with second-degree murder, negligent use of a deadly weapon, and two counts of tampering with evidence, reflecting not only the fatal shot itself but also his actions after Tiberi was wounded.
The case remains under active investigation by the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau, and no additional suspects have been named publicly. Authorities have not indicated that anyone other than Trujillo is believed to have fired the weapon, and there is no public information suggesting further arrests connected to Tiberi's death. In official accounts, the narrative centers on a small circle of friends, a parked car outside a tribal casino, drugs, and a gun handled with careless confidence—an ordinary night that slid, in a matter of moments, into irrevocable loss for the family and community of Elias Tiberi.
