Man accused of killing New Mexico woman arrested in Arizona
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A brutal crime that started in a small New Mexico town ended in Arizona. Now a young child has lost her mother, and her father is facing potentially the rest of his life in prison.
Police say 25-year-old Rosa Trujillo was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher when she was shot and killed. Her daughter, just a toddler, was reportedly in the same room.
On May 23, Trujillo called the police when her daughter’s father, 26-year-old Zion Gibson, had reportedly shown up at her home in Lovington. Over the phone, they could hear her yelling.
“You f****** scare me, I’m not answering the door,” Trujillo said.
She wouldn’t let him in. But the dispatcher overhears glass breaking and Trujillo yelling at Gibson again.
“Zion! You just broke my f****** window, I’m already on the f****** phone with the cops.”
They went back and forth and the dispatcher could hear Gibson yell.
“Are you gonna f****** cheat on me again?!”
And Trujillo screamed into the phone, “He has a gun!”
That’s when what sounded like six gunshots, a pause, then five more rang out over the phone – followed by a car with a loud exhaust driving away. But this next detail is perhaps the worst of all.
“Investigation also revealed that the couple’s three-and-half-year-old baby girl, their daughter, was in very close proximity and in the same room as the victim,” Lovington Police Chief David Miranda said over the phone Monday as he drove back from Arizona.
Police say Gibson called Trujillo’s parents shortly after the incident – telling them to check on their granddaughter, because he had just killed her mother.
Gibson allegedly left Lovington, heading toward Arizona. So, local police reached out to state police for help.
“[State Police] intercepted him on I-40 westbound,” Miranda said, “Just west of Albuquerque, I believe around Gallup. It was a high-speed pursuit into the state of Arizona and Arizona DPS was notified and they took over the pursuit in the state of Arizona.”
Gibson also reportedly posted a video on social media during that pursuit, where he admits to killing Trujillo.
“Gibson crashed around Holbrook, Arizona where there was a brief standoff with Arizona DPA SWAT, but he ended up surrendering peacefully,” Miranda said.
He is now in the Apache County Jail in Arizona – waiting to be sent back to New Mexico to face charges. Those charges include first-degree murder, child abuse, and burglary. KOB 4 requested access to the recording of the 911 call Trujillo made, and the social media video on Gibson’s private account.