Manuel Gonzalez-Bravo, 26, male, of Yuma, died on March 8, 2019. In the pre-dawn quiet around 4 a.m., deputies were called to the Chevron at 2003 West 8th Street, where they found him inside a parked vehicle by a gas pump with multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to Yuma Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Investigators released images of a dark mid-size SUV seen leaving the area southbound on 20th Avenue as they appealed for tips in the days that followed.
For months the case hung over the community, a name on nightly newscasts and a photograph on police bulletins, until a break the following year. On August 5, 2020, the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office obtained warrants for two local men—Gabriel Alexander Aragon and Anthony Joseph Guillen—on charges that included first-degree murder and third-degree burglary. Aragon was arrested by Yuma Police on August 8; Guillen, already in state custody on unrelated matters, was to be transferred to the county jail to face the new charges.
The legal aftermath stretched across years of hearings and negotiations. In August 2022, Guillen pleaded guilty to an amended count of second-degree murder, avoiding trial but agreeing to a prison term of no less than 16 years; two months later, in October 2022, a judge sentenced him to 22 years. His plea acknowledged the deadly shooting that had left Gonzalez-Bravo mortally wounded in his car at the gas station that early March morning.
Another resolution followed for the second defendant. In December 2022, Aragon appeared in Yuma Superior Court and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Under the plea agreement, he faced a prison term between 16 and 22 years with no possibility of probation, plus a $150,000 fine, with sentencing set for January 19. The convictions brought an end to a case that began with grainy surveillance images and a frantic search for a fleeing SUV, closing the circle on a killing that had started at a corner gas station before dawn.
