Jesus Fabian De La Rosa, a 58-year-old man, was a beloved figure in the downtown Mesa community, known for his kindness and his work at Lamb's Shoe Repair, a business he had owned since 2005. His life was tragically cut short on December 6, 2022, when he was found dead inside his shop located near Main Street and MacDonald. A customer who had come into the store and couldn't find him made the grim discovery, finding De La Rosa on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds.
The community was left in shock, mourning the loss of a man described as a pillar of their community who was always ready to help anyone in need.
The investigation into the homicide quickly pointed Mesa Police toward a person of interest. Investigators learned that just days earlier, on December 1st, De La Rosa had filed a police report stating that his. 380 handgun had been stolen. He had told officers that he occasionally allowed an unhoused man to use the restroom in his shop and suspected that this individual may have taken the weapon. On the day he was killed, family members reported that De La Rosa had brought another gun to work for his protection. When his body was discovered, the holster he wore was empty, and both the second firearm and his cell phone were missing. At the scene, investigators found bullet cartridges that matched the calibers of both the stolen gun and the one he had been carrying that day.
Detectives pieced together evidence, including witness descriptions of a man in 'unique clothing' seen near the shoe repair shop. Surveillance footage from the light rail showed a man matching the description traveling from Mesa to Phoenix before and after the estimated time of the murder. Critically, the man was seen with a walking cane when he exited the train in Mesa, but did not have it when he re-boarded; a cane was later found inside the shoe shop. Police then used data from De La Rosa's missing cell phone to trace its path, which mirrored the route the suspect took on the light rail, ending near the Central Arizona Shelter Services in downtown Phoenix before the phone was turned off.
On December 9, 2022, just three days after the murder, police located and arrested 65-year-old Lynell Brosier at the shelter. At the time of his arrest, Brosier was found to be in possession of the. 380 handgun that had been reported stolen from De La Rosa's shop. Brosier was subsequently charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery, and several other weapons-related offenses in connection with the death of the well-regarded shoe repairman. The arrest brought a swift, if somber, resolution to a crime that had deeply affected the Mesa community.
