On the evening of Monday, September 4, 2023, a shooting on Punch Street in the Layhill neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland, left 65-year-old Rosa Maria Benitez-Ozuna dead. Police were called for reports of a shooting at about 7:54 p.m.; officers first found an adult male in the street with a gunshot wound who was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Inside a nearby home officers discovered Rosa Maria Benitez-Ozuna deceased and another woman, identified as the suspect’s mother, with multiple gunshot wounds; that woman was rushed to the hospital in serious condition. Investigators named 23-year-old Manuel Alejandro Ayala, a resident of the home, as the suspect. He was arrested at the scene without incident and transported to the county processing unit.

Ayala was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Rosa Maria Benitez-Ozuna, two counts of attempted first-degree murder for the two wounded victims, and multiple firearm offenses, and was being held pending a bond hearing. Does anyone in the Layhill area have information about this shooting or knew Rosa Maria Benitez-Ozuna?