A 26-year-old man confessed he killed his girlfriend with a sawed-off shotgun after she refused to reconcile with him on Wednesday night, according to a court document.
Gilberto Cruz was being held Friday at the Jefferson County Detention Facility, said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County district attorney’s office.
He appeared briefly in court on Friday to be notified why he was being held. Immigration authorities are investigating whether he is in the country illegally, Russell said.
Cruz is suspected of fatally shooting Amanda Jean Duran in the 2000 block of Otis Street in Edgewater about 8:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Police originally arrested him under the alias Eduardo Espinosa-Martinez, Russell said.
On Wednesday night, Duran was at home on the phone with a friend named Ruben Marquez when a man he knew as “Eddie” entered her house, Marquez told police. Marquez heard Duran tell Eddie, “What are you doing here,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Eddie responded, “Why can’t I come over here?”
The call was disconnected at that point.
When contacted by police, Cruz confessed to killing Duran. He said he had been planning for about a week to kill her if she didn’t reconcile with him, according to the court document.
He had a sawed-off shotgun and three shells under his shirt. When she refused to be with him again, he put a shell in the gun but it did not fire. She struggled with him for the gun briefly and then ran out of the house, the document said.
Cruz said he then ran after her and shot her to death.
About an hour later, Cruz told his brother that he had killed his girlfriend, the document said.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
