Armando Medina, 29, was found dead at a Motel 6 on De La Torre Boulevard in Salinas on October 1, 2019. Police responded around 5 a.m. to a report of a gunshot victim and discovered Medina unconscious and not breathing in the motel stairwell; he was pronounced dead at the scene. The circumstances of how he came to be in the stairwell remain unclear, and the case was classified as a homicide.

Medina had been renting a room at the motel. Officers found a blood trail leading toward a parked vehicle; blood samples were sent to the Department of Justice lab and produced a DNA profile that matched Justin Bravo, 32, of Castroville. Bravo was arrested on June 5, 2020, after a SWAT team and Hostage Negotiation Team surrounded his home; he resisted and was taken into custody using non-lethal foam rounds and a police K9, then booked into Monterey County Jail for murder. A second suspect, Edgar Tapia, 21, who was already in jail on unrelated charges, was later linked to Medina’s death and also faced murder charges.

Does anyone have information about Medina’s movements at the motel that night or about the vehicle noted in the investigation?