In the pre-dawn hours of August 3, 2019, gunfire on Farmington Avenue in Hartford left 23-year-old Roberto Vargas with multiple gunshot wounds. Vargas, a Hartford High and Lincoln Culinary Institute graduate and father of two, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Neighbors in the Asylum Hill neighborhood described him as a very good kid; his death was the city’s 18th homicide that year.

Hartford police used witness statements and surveillance footage to identify a suspect. On August 14 authorities arrested 26-year-old Joseph Thorpe at an apartment complex in Manchester and charged him with murder and criminal possession of a firearm; Thorpe, a convicted felon, had been barred from possessing a gun. Thorpe told police he had been in the area that night to sell drugs to Vargas. Prosecutors say Vargas was shot in the back while running away and that Thorpe was the only person armed; no weapon for Vargas was recovered. A jury found Thorpe guilty of murder in July 2023 and he was sentenced on September 22, 2023 to 50 years in prison.

Does anyone in the Asylum Hill area remember Vargas or the events of that night and can share information that might add context to the case?