Ana Delia Rios, a 45-year-old woman whose race and ethnicity are not specified in available public reports, was killed on the night of April 9, 2009 in the southwest area of Tucson, Arizona, in what authorities identified as a domestic-violence-related murder-suicide involving her ex-husband, Martin Rios Gonzales. Pima County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the couple’s home in the 7100 block of Hildreth Avenue, near Cardinal Avenue and Los Reales Road, after relatives in the house heard
gunshots coming from the bedroom and bathroom. When deputies arrived around 10:30 p.m., they found both Rios and Gonzales dead from gunshot wounds; investigators concluded that Gonzales had shot Rios and then turned the gun on himself.
Public records on the case describe a long-term relationship that had recently ended but remained volatile. Rios and Gonzales had been divorced for about a year but were still sharing the same home, a situation highlighted in Arizona’s 2009 Domestic Violence Fatality Report as a case study of intimate-partner homicide. On the day of the shooting, Gonzales was reportedly supposed to move out of the residence, and the couple had been arguing beforehand. Inside the home at the time were family members, including a 4-year-old grandson, the couple’s daughter-in-law and her sister, who heard the gunfire and sought help, prompting the 911 call that brought deputies to the scene.
Because Gonzales died at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing Rios, no arrests were made in connection with her death, and law enforcement treated him as the sole perpetrator rather than seeking additional suspects. Contemporary coverage by local television news and later domestic-violence advocacy summaries consistently characterize the incident as a murder-suicide, with no indication that anyone else was involved or that charges were ever brought against another person.
