A 19-year-old man was sentenced last week to more than 30 years in Colorado prison for shooting and killing another man in Denver in 2025, according to court records.
Giovanni Anthony Gonzalez took a deal and pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder in the January 2025 shooting death of Aaron Roybal, 52, according to Denver District Court records. The deal dropped a first-degree murder charge from Gonzalez’s case.
Judge Martin Foster Egelhoff sentenced Gonzalez during the same Friday hearing to 35 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections, according to court records.
The fatal shooting happened just after 9 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2025, near the intersection of South Sheridan Boulevard and West Wyoming Place, Denver police said. Investigators said Gonzalez and Roybal were talking outside a cannabis dispensary on Sheridan minutes before the shooting.
Both men started to drive away from the store, but security cameras recorded Gonzalez pulling a U-turn and driving back up to Roybal’s car. Roybal exited the vehicle and Gonzalez shot him, police wrote in an arrest affidavit.
The plea deal canceled a jury trial slated to begin May 4, according to Denver court records.
