On a cold Saturday night, January 20, 1996, Genaro Alellano-Sanchez, a 24-year-old Hispanic male, was gunned down in Denver. Police were dispatched to the 1000 block of West 39th Avenue after reports of shots fired. When officers reached the mouth of an alley there, they found two people down—Genaro and 25-year-old Felix Perez-Castaneda. Both had been shot.
The details available are stark and spare.
The scene was an alleyway just off West 39th, the sort of narrow cut through the neighborhood that holds sound and shadows. Responding officers secured the area and documented the victims where they fell. The Denver Police Department later summarized the case in a cold-case bulletin that listed Genaro by name and age, and recorded the date, location, and the fact that both men were found at the alley’s entrance after a shooting. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s entry mirrors the essential facts and links Genaro’s case to Perez-Castaneda as a related victim from the same incident.
Decades later, investigators still describe the homicide as unsolved. Public records do not identify any arrested person or named suspect connected to Genaro’s killing, and the police bulletin expressly asks for information that could lead to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible. Memorial and cold-case listings reiterate the date, place, and manner of death, but add no news of charges.
