In the early morning hours of April 28, 2024, the life of Erin Jones, a 20-year-old female University of Arizona sophomore, was tragically cut short by gunfire. She had been at a large off-campus house party on East 5th Street in Tucson, an event that coincided with the end of the university's spring football training. As the party wound down, Jones was outside waiting for an Uber to take her home.
It was then, at approximately 1:40 a.m., that a drive-by shooting erupted, chaos enveloping the gathering of over 200 people.
Amid the volley of what investigators later determined to be over 80 gunshots, Jones was struck. First responders arrived to a sprawling crime scene and found her with life-threatening injuries. They administered immediate aid before she was rushed to Banner University Medical Center, but her wounds proved fatal, and she was pronounced deceased shortly after arrival. Three other individuals, a teenage girl, a man, and another woman, also sustained non-life-threatening gunshot wounds in the incident but survived. The news of her death sent shockwaves from the Tucson community back to her hometown of Newport Beach, California, where she was remembered as a kind and inclusive teammate on her high school soccer team.
The Tucson Police Department launched an extensive investigation into the homicide. Detectives believed the perpetrators were not targeting Jones or other university students, but had come to the party to find and shoot at another group of people. After conducting over 200 interviews and collecting significant evidence, investigators identified four suspects. In June 2024, authorities announced the arrests of four teenagers in connection with the fatal shooting. The suspects were identified as 18-year-old Estevan Garcia, 17-year-old Tevian Matthew Beiel, 17-year-old Marcus Ian Williams, and 17-year-old Akeem Alvarez. All four face serious charges, including first-degree murder and drive-by shooting, as the legal process to bring justice for Erin Jones continues.
