On the evening of June 27, 2019, a house party on Quetzl Drive SW in Albuquerque ended with 19-year-old Isaiah Villanueva shot and killed. Villanueva, a Hispanic specialist in the U.S. Army assigned to the 601st Transportation Detachment, 372nd Quartermaster Battalion, was remembered by family for his smile, kindness and interests in hunting, fishing and time with loved ones.

Witness accounts of the shooting differ. Two 17-year-olds, Angel Grado and Timothy Malek, arrived at the party armed; witnesses say Grado had been showing a handgun with an extended magazine and making threats. One partygoer said Malek fired two or three shots at Villanueva during an argument near the back of the house. Grado maintained he fired a single shot after being punched. Two other people were wounded in the chaos. Grado and Malek fled the scene in a car; Grado later admitted discarding his gun out the window as they drove.

Both teenagers were arrested. Grado was charged with an open count of murder; Malek initially faced multiple charges including murder, but those charges were later dismissed. Grado’s case went to retrial; on August 17, 2022, a jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence and acquitted him of second-degree murder. Did anyone at that party or nearby see what started the argument that night?