In the early morning of September 30, 2016, a tragedy unfolded inside a Minneapolis apartment that claimed the life of 10-year-old Hispanic female Nahily Scarlett Ronquillo Alvarado. The quiet Wenonah neighborhood was disrupted by a violent domestic incident that occurred around 7:10 a.m. in an apartment on the 5400 block of 34th Avenue South. Responding officers discovered a grim scene where Nahily, her 13-year-old brother Luis, and their father lay dead from gunshot wounds.
Their mother, Maria Romero, was also found with severe gunshot injuries but survived the attack.
Subsequent investigation by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office determined that Nahily and her brother Luis both died from gunshot wounds to the head, and their deaths were ruled as homicides. The investigation concluded that their father, 39-year-old Luis Eduardo Ronquillo Alvarado, was the perpetrator. After shooting his two children and their mother, he turned the gun on himself, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The authorities officially classified the devastating event as a murder-suicide.
At the time of her death, Nahily was a fifth-grade student at Richfield Dual Language School, and her brother was in the eighth grade at Richfield Middle School. Their mother had also been an employee of the Richfield school district. Following the incident, Minneapolis police assured the public that there was no ongoing threat and they were not searching for any suspects, believing it to be a domestic-related homicide. The case was closed with the identification of the father as the sole suspect in the killings of his children.
