On May 1, 2022, 28-year-old Maria Guadalupe Godinez Ramirez was ambushed and shot multiple times along the Old West Highway in Apache Junction, Arizona, after leaving work. Aware she was being followed, she tried to find safety and managed to call 911, but was found in her vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds and died a few hours later during surgery at a nearby hospital.

Investigators identified the incident as a homicide and linked the attack to Ramirez’s former partner, 34-year-old Ulises A. Cruz Peraza. Ramirez had obtained a protective order against him five months earlier, citing fear for her life. Peraza fled to Los Angeles but was located by detectives with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service and arrested in his vehicle; he was held in Los Angeles County Jail on a homicide charge pending extradition to Arizona.

Ramirez was a single mother of an 8-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. If anyone has information about the case or knew Maria, please come forward.