In the late hours of a cold Friday night in Pueblo, Colorado, the life of 23-year-old Daniel Christopher Robert Howard, a male, came to a violent end. On February 4, 2022, shots rang out in the parking lot of the Pueblo Village Apartments located at 2401 Alma Avenue. Howard was struck by gunfire and rushed to a local hospital in a private vehicle. Despite the efforts of medical personnel, he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased.
The circumstances surrounding Howard's
death were complex and intertwined with another recent act of violence in the city. In a strange twist of fate, on the very same day he was killed, the Pueblo Police Department had publicly identified Howard as a wanted person. They had secured a no-bond warrant for his arrest on charges of first-degree murder with extreme indifference, prohibited use of a firearm, and reckless endangerment. These charges stemmed from a shooting that had occurred weeks earlier, on January 15, 2022, outside a south Pueblo bar called Classic Q's.
In that incident, a 47-year-old woman named Renee Gonzales was found in her vehicle with four gunshot wounds. Investigators connected a 2012 silver Ford Fusion, allegedly driven by Howard, to the shooting. Police believed he had acted as an accomplice to the gunman who fired the shots. Law enforcement had even found Howard's ID at the scene of a 'shots fired' call on the same morning as the Classic Q's shooting. When questioned, Howard denied knowing the identity of the suspected shooter, a claim investigators found deceitful. His grandmother later recounted that Howard had been scared and insisted he was not the one who had shot Gonzales.
The investigation into Daniel Howard's own murder is ongoing, and authorities have not publicly identified any suspects or made any arrests in the case. His family believes that the individuals he was involved with during the January 15th incident may be connected to his subsequent slaying. The Pueblo Police Department has appealed to the public for any information that might lead to a breakthrough in the investigation, leaving the story of who shot Daniel Christopher Robert Howard, and why, unanswered.
