A Phoenix boy was gunned down in 2010; his murder remains unsolved

Megan Cassidy | The Republic | azcentral.com

On a Monday night in 2002, after her husband left for work, Ruth Valladares and her 4-year-old son, Jonathan, quietly slipped out of their home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, bound for Phoenix.

It had been carefully orchestrated for months.

The two would live with Valladares’ mother until she got settled, escaping a country where epidemic-level murder rates were a secondary concern to the violence of Jonathan’s father.

And so it seemed a particularly cruel twist of fate on Nov. 7, 2010, when 13-year-old Jonathan was gunned down while out on a morning jog in the Camelback East neighborhood of Phoenix.

“I expect this in Honduras,” Valladares said. “(It) is a place where there is no order… people don’t have power to embrace a different kind of life. I understand this over there.”

The attack seemed hopelessly random, and police for the past five years have worked few reliable leads.

Witnesses said a young man was seen walking away from the area of the shooting. Detectives questioned kids at Jonathan’s school, but nothing materialized.

"This case is particularly heart-wrenching due to the fact the victim was completely innocent, only 13 years of age and had no criminal ties,” said Phoenix police Detective Dominick Roestenberg. “His family and friends are devastated and longing for answers.”

Motive unknown

By all accounts, Jonathan was what teachers, parents and police would call a “good kid.” He excelled in school, his mother said, cheerfully doted on his baby brother and had just enrolled in his school’s flag football team.

Jonathan's new hobby was on his mind that Sunday morning, in what would be his final hours. There was a big game coming up, and he wanted to get in shape.

“He was overweight a little bit — he told me that he was too slow. All the kids were faster than him running,” Valladares recalled in a recent interview.

So at 7:35 a.m., Jonathan called his stepdad to let him know he'd be jogging around the neighborhood. He would come right back home.

Police believe that he was attacked no more than 10 minutes later. His body was discovered near the 2700 block of North 26th Street, just blocks from his family.

The gunshots cut through the morning air, startling several neighbors. One noticed a suspect walking away, north on 26th Street. The witness said he called 911 and followed the man to a point around the southwest corner of 28th Street and Thomas Road, where he continued to walk south.

Other witness statements seemed to contradict this account, however. Two others reported hearing gunshots immediately followed by voices urging someone to get in a car, then a car speeding away.

Valladares today finds some comfort in knowing her son wasn’t forced to suffer before he died. A neighbor tended to Jonathan just after hearing the shots but felt no pulse by the time he reached the boy.

Jonathan had no known links to gangs or other criminal activity. He had no known enemies, and the only suggestion of a robbery motive was his missing cell phone. Police said the phone has been turned off since the first day of the investigation.

Today, Valladares wonders if her son’s death was a case of mistaken identity.

“I have thousands of questions in my head. I wish I could have an answer,” she said. “I think … sooner or later the person would have to know that he was a kid. The news of Jonathan’s death was on TV for three, four months. He was an awesome kid. I don’t know how you can live with that.”

Physical evidence

There was little evidence found at the scene other than a handful of small-caliber casings found near the victim. Roestenberg said these casings, along with Jonathan’s eyeglasses, which fell off his face during the attack, have recently been submitted to the crime lab for further testing.

Life of Jonathan Garcia-Valladares

Jonathan never spoke in Honduras. Valladares said she knew her son wasn’t developmentally impaired but rather was terrified of his father, who abused both him and his mother.

He turned age 5 just 20 days after setting foot on U.S. soil and absorbed the English language quickly after enrolling in school.

All his teachers told Valladares that her son was the “smartest guy in class,” she said in a recent interview inside the Laundromat where she currently works.

The memories of her son’s accolades flow easily and in vivid detail. He was his elementary school’s “zoo ambassador” for six years. He got to visit and touch almost all of the zoo animals and report back to his classmates what he had learned.

Valladares remarried in the United States, and when Jonathan was 8, she got pregnant with her second child. The baby was unexpected — Valladares didn’t plan on more kids — but he was the brother Jonathan had begged for.

“When I gave him the news, he was so excited. He couldn’t wait the nine months,” she said. “For him, it was too much time.”

Jonathan would take Isaac Jr. from his crib to come sleep in his room. He fed him, dressed him and rushed to change his diapers.

“I was, like, disgusting. You don’t think it’s disgusting?’” Valladares recalled. “And he’s like ‘No. It’s my brother.’”

Isaac today has few memories of his older brother. For his mother, it’s the memories that have transformed her life into a shell of what it was when Jonathan was alive.

She refuses to eat at the kitchen table, to celebrate Christmas or to cook the food he liked. They celebrate his birthday each year with a cake at the cemetery. He would have been 18 the last time.

Valladares sees children in the streets and can’t help but to wonder why it was her son, a barely 13-year-old boy who had come so far from his previous life.

“He was trying to become something, for him and for us,” she said. “That really breaks my heart.”

If you have any information regarding this case, police ask that you contact Silent Witness at W-I-T-N-E-S-S, that’s 480-948-6377, or toll free at 1-800-343-TIPS. You can also leave an anonymous tip on the silent witness website at silentwitness.org.