Itzel Espinoza was a 17-year-old Hispanic/Latina high school student from Phoenix, Arizona, with dreams of a career in modeling or as a social media influencer. Her family remembered her love for makeup, fashion, and posing for photos, and she had already gained tens of thousands of online followers who were drawn to her curated style and self-expression.
She was looking forward to her senior year and would have turned 18 in September 2021.
On the night of July 1, 2021, Itzel left her home to go out with friends. When she did not return and her phone and social media accounts went silent, her worried parents reported her missing to police on July 2. They were concerned that she had recently been spending time with people they did not know or trust. In the early morning hours of July 3, at around 5:30 a.m., a caller reported a person sitting inside a car in an alley near 35th Avenue and Southern who appeared to have been shot.
Responding Phoenix police officers found Itzel in the passenger seat of the vehicle. She was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene by firefighters. Investigators later noted that the car, a Lexus, did not belong to her and was believed to have been stolen, deepening the mystery of her final hours.
As detectives pieced together the events leading to her death, witnesses told them that Itzel had been in an argument and a physical fight with another teenager, Lindsey Brianna Aguilar. According to court documents, Itzel ran to the Lexus and locked herself inside to get away. Aguilar then allegedly asked a friend for a gun and fired into the car, striking Itzel and inflicting the fatal wounds.
Within weeks, investigators had identified three people in connection with the homicide. On July 16, police arrested 19-year-old Jesus J. Valle Padilla, who was accused of helping provide the weapon used in the shooting. A 16-year-old boy, whose name was withheld due to his age, was also taken into custody and booked into juvenile detention on a charge related to abandonment of a body. In July 2023, Jesus Padilla was sentenced to 13 years in prison for manslaughter for his role in Itzel's death.
Police named Lindsey Brianna Aguilar as the alleged shooter and issued a felony warrant for her arrest on a murder charge. She remains a fugitive and is believed to be moving between the United States and Mexico. Itzel’s family continues to speak out to keep attention on the case, saying that while they have some solace from the conviction of an accomplice, justice will not be complete until Aguilar is captured and faces trial. Anyone with information is asked to call the Phoenix Police Department or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS.
