A 21-year-old Colorado woman was shot and killed after an attempted carjacking in Longmont.
The victim was identified as Taylor Smith Maxwell.
According to Boulder County deputies, Taylor was shot while sitting in the passenger seat of a car near the intersection of Highway 287 and Yellowstone Road early Sunday morning. Deputies believe the suspects were trying to carjack Taylor’s mother in the driver’s seat.
The suspects were identified as 23-year-Martin Cerda, 24-year-old Adriana Vargas, and 24-year-old Marissa Ruiz.
The incident began as a pursuit around 12:15 a.m. in Larimer County after the driver of the vehicle, suspected of DUI, failed to stop for a Larimer County Sherriff’s Office deputy.
The vehicle eluded the deputy in the Berthoud area and was last seen southbound on Highway 287, near Highway 56, when the deputy stopped pursuing the vehicle.
Deputies were able to quickly locate four suspects in a camper trailer parked on a residential property in the immediate area and took two men and two women into custody without incident. Only three of the four found in the camper are facing charges.
The car Taylor and her mother had been riding in at the time of the attempted carjacking, is impounded.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses.
Cerda and Vargas are each facing second-degree murder charges and possession of a weapon by a previous offender. Cerda is facing additional charges of attempted aggravated robbery and vehicle eluding. Ruiz was arrested for several outstanding warrants, the sheriff’s office said.
According to an arrest affidavit, both Cerda and Vargas has been selling fentanyl leading up to the incident. The court document states, “It was also learned that all occupants of the vehicle had been consuming drugs and that Martin [Cerda] and Adriana [Vargas] had been selling blues (a common street name for illegal Fentanyl) and made approximately $30 previously in the night.”
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