Damion Alday was a 19-year-old White man described by those who loved him as a hardworking and amazing brother who was always providing for his family. His life was cut short in a violent encounter in northwest Albuquerque, New Mexico, just two days after Christmas.
On the afternoon of December 27, 2023, police responded to reports of gunfire at Sundoro Park.
When they arrived around 4:20 p.m., they found Damion Alday on the ground behind a Chevrolet Camaro, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Surveillance video from the park showed that Alday and another young man had gotten out of their respective cars and began to argue. The two exchanged gunfire, and Alday fell to the ground. The other man then approached Alday and shot him several more times, including multiple times in the head, before fleeing in a Mazda.
The investigation quickly zeroed in on a 17-year-old named Andres Herrera. Detectives used license plate readers to track the Mazda and discovered social media accounts where Herrera wrote about the murder. In one Instagram message, he admitted to the shooting, stating that after Alday dropped to the ground, he "walked up to him shooting him in the head 5 times." The motive for the attack appeared to be a plot for revenge against Alday’s sister, whom the teens believed had cooperated with police after a group of them crashed a stolen vehicle months earlier.
On January 15, 2024, police arrested Andres Herrera and charged him with murder and tampering with evidence. The investigation continued, and on February 8, 2024, authorities arrested two more teenagers, siblings Evangeline Garcia, 17, and Paul Garcia, 15. Police stated the siblings were with Herrera at the time of the shooting and were also charged with an open count of murder. According to detectives, Instagram group chats showed Evangeline Garcia had discussed taking her brother to the park to be the "cameraman" and record the incident.
Andres Herrera was charged as an adult for the murder of Damion Alday, as well as for the separate killing of another man, Phillip Apodaca, in October 2023. In July 2025, Herrera pleaded no contest to two counts of first-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, he apologized to the victims' families. In May 2026, a judge sentenced Herrera to 40 years in prison, which will be followed by 10 years of supervised probation.
