White/Caucasian female Brianna Hetrick, age 22, died on October 28, 2023, in Homer, Alaska, after a shooting inside a residence on Adams Drive. Police and Alaska State Troopers responded around 4 p.m. and found the 22-year-old deceased inside the home. Outside, officers encountered 35-year-old Arturo Mondragon-Lopez, who, according to charging documents described by local outlets, had called 911 to report that he had shot his girlfriend.
He was arrested at the scene and taken to the Homer Jail, and the state medical examiner received the body for autopsy.
In the days that followed, prosecutors charged Mondragon-Lopez with second-degree murder. A grand jury later returned an indictment that expanded the case, adding counts beyond the original charge. At his early court appearances he pleaded not guilty, while filings referenced his 911 call and the account that the gunshot had occurred inside the residence. Coverage consistently identified the victim as a 22-year-old from Homer and the defendant as a 35-year-old originally from Arkansas.
As the case moved into 2025, the trajectory shifted. A plea change hearing was set for early February, and on February 5 Mondragon-Lopez pleaded guilty to manslaughter under a deal that dismissed the other counts. Reporting on the plea described an agreed-upon sentence structure of 20 years with five suspended—effectively 15 years to serve—subject to the judge's final decision at sentencing.
On June 30, 2025, a Superior Court judge in Homer imposed the sentence: 15 years in prison to serve and 10 years of probation, consistent with the plea agreement. Local newspapers emphasized that the shooting that killed the 22-year-old took place in late October 2023 and that the resolution came after the defendant admitted guilt to manslaughter. By then, the community had already held memorials and fundraisers for the family, and the case had moved from an arrest on a murder charge to a manslaughter conviction and a lengthy term of imprisonment.
