Cutberto “Cuy” Gastelum, a 35-year-old Hispanic / Latino man, lived with his family in a modest apartment near 12th Street and Indian School Road in central Phoenix, where he worked hard in construction and tried to keep life steady and simple for the people he loved. That November, as the evenings turned cooler, he followed a familiar routine: finishing his shift, coming home tired but content, and settling in with his wife and children in the small space that had become their refuge after
long days of work. To neighbors he was quiet and friendly, someone who got along with everyone, a family man who went to work and then went straight home. His wife would later say he had no enemies and that he cherished the time he spent with them.
On the night of November 21, 2016, that ordinary rhythm was broken by a knock at the front door sometime around late evening, close to 11 p.m. According to his wife, the sound came once, then again, just enough to draw him from wherever he was in the apartment toward the entryway. He walked to the door as anyone would, expecting perhaps a neighbor, a friend, or a simple misunderstanding. Instead, as he reached it, shots tore through the door itself. He never even had a chance to open it. His wife later remembered seeing no blood at first, only the terrible, unnatural hole in his back where one of the bullets had struck him, and the pair of bullet holes in the door that showed how deliberate the attack had been.
Outside, the hallway filled with the sudden panic of gunfire and the frantic calls for help that followed. Inside the apartment, his family tried to understand what had just happened as he collapsed, mortally wounded, just beyond the threshold of his own home. Police and paramedics arrived to find him on the floor inside the apartment, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to the hospital from the scene, but the damage was too severe; a short time later, he was pronounced dead, one more name added to the city’s long roll of gun violence victims.
In the days that followed, the doorway where he had fallen became an impromptu shrine. Candles and flowers appeared outside the apartment, clustering around the scarred door with its bullet holes, quiet testimonies left by grieving family and friends. His wife spoke publicly through her grief, describing a man who loved to work, who came home to spend time with his family, a man from Sinaloa, Mexico, who had built a life in Phoenix and who had, in her eyes, no reason to be targeted by anyone. She struggled aloud with the question that haunted everyone who knew him: why would someone knock on their door only to fire through it, killing the person who answered without a word or warning.
Homicide detectives with the Phoenix Police Department opened an investigation immediately, canvassing the area around the apartment complex and collecting what evidence they could from the doorway and the interior of the unit. Early news reports simply noted that someone had come to the door and shot him several times, and that detectives were on scene, but they did not describe a suspect, give a vehicle description, or mention any person of interest. Over the years since, public records and memorial listings continue to remember him but do not report any arrests or identified suspects in connection with his killing, and he is still listed among Phoenix’s unsolved homicide victims. The absence of a named suspect in open sources suggests that the case has never been resolved in court, leaving his family and community without the answers or justice they have been waiting for since that night.
