On October 20, 2023, at approximately 5:05 p.m., deputies responded to a call reporting a deceased individual in the 400 block of 16th Street in Ramona, California. Upon arrival, they spoke with the reporting party, who had discovered his brother, 26-year-old Eduardo Aguilar Alba, unresponsive inside his home. Deputies entered the residence and found Mr. Aguilar Alba with an apparent gunshot wound; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office conducted an autopsy, determining that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, and ruling the manner of death as homicide. At that stage of the investigation, the motivation and circumstances surrounding the shooting were unclear. Sheriff's Homicide investigators began working to gather more information to determine the facts of the case.
As the investigation progressed, detectives identified 24-year-old Ramona resident, Sean Joseph Hawksworth, as a suspect in Mr. Aguilar Alba's death. On November 3, 2023, just before 2:30 a.m., deputies executed a search warrant at Hawksworth's residence and took him into custody. He was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into the San Diego Central Jail.
The investigation remains ongoing, with authorities continuing to gather information to determine the facts and motive behind the case. The Sheriff's Department has urged anyone with information about the incident to contact the Homicide Unit or Crime Stoppers to assist in the investigation.
