On the evening of March 3, 2023, 17-year-old Benjamin Rios Archuleta was shot while driving south on Interstate 25 near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Archuleta and a passenger had stopped briefly at a gas station in Dona Ana before getting back on the highway. A Honda sedan followed them onto I-25, and at least one person in that vehicle fired at Archuleta’s car. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced deceased.

State police investigators identified the Honda’s driver as Daniel Ortiz and the shooting passenger as Drake Armendariz. Both were arrested within a week of the killing and, as charged, face first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, shooting at or from a motor vehicle resulting in great bodily injury, assault with intent to commit a violent felony, and related conspiracy counts. Very little is available about motive or what led to the encounter on the interstate.

If anyone has information about the stop at the Dona Ana gas station, the Honda sedan, or the events on I-25 that night, please share what is known with investigators.