In the fading daylight of a late November evening in Oklahoma City, the life of Matthew Brooks, a 47-year-old White male, was brought to a violent and abrupt end. On November 27, 2023, police responded to the sound of gunfire near Northwest 8th and Meridian Avenue. Arriving at the 900 block of Harris Avenue, they discovered Brooks inside his van, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to OU Medical Center, but his injuries proved to be fatal, and he was pronounced dead.
The incident marked the 69th homicide of the year in the city.
The initial investigation into the shooting left authorities with few immediate leads, and no arrests were made at the scene. However, the turning point in the case came from the silent witness of a surveillance camera. Investigators from the Oklahoma City Police Department utilized their Real Time Information Center to obtain footage of a suspicious pickup truck that had been seen in the vicinity of the crime. This crucial piece of evidence allowed them to piece together the movements of the individuals involved.
The investigation led law enforcement to identify three suspects. Through a collaborative effort with the United States Marshals Service, two of the men, 21-year-old Eric Daniel Triana and 28-year-old Jose Avelar-Martinez, were located and arrested in Guymon, Oklahoma, on December 7, 2023. The third suspect, 22-year-old Jose Resendiz, remained at large for a short time before he was apprehended in Kansas City on the morning of January 10, 2024.
Following their arrests, Jose Avelar-Martinez and Jose Resendiz were charged with first-degree murder. Eric Daniel Triana faced a charge of accessory to murder. Court records later revealed that Martinez and Resendiz pleaded guilty to the murder charges and were subsequently sentenced to life in prison, waiving their rights to any future appeals, commutations, or pardons. Triana pleaded guilty to the accessory charge and received a 10-year suspended sentence to be supervised by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
