Teen who killed woman with AR-15 after fender-bender on Denver’s Colfax Avenue sentenced to life with parole

On a February night almost four years ago, Lorenzo Rodriguez sat his 5-year-old son down to tell him that his mother had been killed.

“ ‘Leo, we need to talk,’ ” Rodriguez said, recounting his exact words in Denver District Court on Thursday. ” ‘You know your daddy loves you very much. It’s about your mommy. Mommy died and is no longer with us.’ ”

That conversation was the most difficult thing Rodriguez had ever done, he said during the sentencing hearing for the teenager who shot and killed his ex-wife, 32-year-old Pamela Cabriales, on Feb. 20, 2021, as she sat in her vehicle at a red light on Colfax Avenue.

Denver District Judge Darryl Shockley sentenced that teenager, 18-year-old Remi Cordova, to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years Thursday for first-degree murder, and sentenced him to an additional eight years in prison for an attempted-murder conviction, to be served consecutively with the life sentence.

The judge noted as he sentenced Cordova that the teenager endured near-constant physical, emotional and sexual abuse from the time he was a toddler, as well as serious neglect.

“Your life for 14 years, it was tragic,” Shockley told Cordova. “…There have been failings at every level — at every level — to bring Mr. Cordova to that fateful night.”

Cordova was 14 when he opened fire on and killed Cabriales with an AR-15-style rifle after a fender-bender in what prosecutors said was an attempt to gain status in the Eastside Crips gang.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Courtney Johnston had unsuccessfully asked Shockley to follow Cordova’s mandatory life sentence for the murder conviction with an additional 24 years in prison for the attempted-murder count, which would further push back the teen’s parole eligibility date. The attempted-murder charge was filed because another driver almost was struck by the gunfire that night.

Cabriales’ family on Thursday described her as a loving, kind and generous woman who took people into her home when they fell on hard times. She was a dedicated mother who fiercely loved her son.

“She was the heartbeat of our family,” said Alex Cabriales, her brother. “She had a heart of gold… She was the example of what love and kindness should be in this world. Remi took that from us that night.”

Cordova denied that he committed the killing when he spoke in court Thursday before he was sentenced.

“I want you all to know I feel for you all and I understand completely and I’m terribly sorry for the pain you guys feel,” he said to Cabriales’ family. “But I can’t take responsibility for something that I did not do… I’m not the monster or the murderer that I have been painted to be by the Denver District Attorney’s Office.”

Cordova’s defense at trial argued that he didn’t commit the homicide and that another teenager in the car actually pulled the trigger. The teen plans to appeal his conviction.

Several people also spoke in support of Cordova during Thursday’s hearing, describing his childhood as rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse from a young age. He was neglected and traumatized by his mother, who was mentally ill, they said, and was at times homeless.

His extended family described instances when they found him living in filth or left alone in a car while his mother went clubbing. He was at times beaten, burned and left unsupervised. Systems that should have helped him did not.

“I never had a chance from the jump, from me being born,” Cordova said in court Thursday. “It’s been very hard for me coming up as a young man.”

Someone first reported concerns about Cordova’s care to the Department of Human Services when he was 1 month old, and the agency had eight reports of alleged abuse and neglect by the time he turned 3, including that he was running around his apartment complex alone, that he had been burned with cigarettes, and was swearing and acting violently at the age of 3, his defense attorney James Zorich said. The abuse escalated in the following years with consistent violence and exploitation.

“This is ongoing, continual abuse and neglect throughout Remi’s life,” Zorich said.

Cordova showed no emotion while speaker after speaker described Cabriales as bright and happy, but bowed his head and cried when his mother, sister and grandmother spoke. He nodded along when his grandmother repeated defense arguments that he didn’t commit the murder.

Cordova was with two other people on the night of Cabriales’ killing. One was another 14-year-old boy, and the other was Neshan Johnson, then 18, who was driving the car.

Johnson was convicted of second-degree murder in Cabriales’ death last year and sentenced to 35 years in prison after jurors found he gave Cordova permission to start shooting.

The three teenagers were stopped at the red light on Colfax at the intersection with Interstate 25 when Cabriales pulled up behind them at about 10:45 p.m. and rear-ended the teenagers’ car in a minor crash.

Cordova, in the front passenger seat, then turned to Johnson and asked, “Can I bust on them?” prosecutors alleged. Johnson, an Eastside Crips gang member with more status than Cordova, then gave the boy permission to open fire.

Cordova got out of the car and shot at least seven times into Cabriales’ SUV, hitting her in the head. He got back into the car, fired twice more at the SUV from the vehicle, and then Johnson and the two boys drove away, evidence at trial showed.

The three teenagers were arrested the next day after a vehicle pursuit.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.