On October 30, 2022, a shooting at a home on Geneva Street in Aurora, Colorado, killed 22-year-old Maria Anita Serrano along with her 51-year-old father Jesus Serrano, her 20-year-old boyfriend Kenneth Eugene Green Luque, and a 49-year-old neighbor, Rudolfo Salgado Perez. The gunman, identified in reports as 21-year-old Joseph Mario Castorena, had broken into the house and waited for the family to return. Jessica Serrano, Maria’s twin sister, had obtained a protective order against Castorena about a week earlier; Jessica and her two young children were present but not physically injured.

Castorena fled after the attack. Two relatives — a 22-year-old cousin, Carlos Casillas-Flores, and an 18-year-old brother, Juan Angel Castorena — were later arrested and charged with accessory to first-degree murder in connection with aiding his escape. Castorena was captured in Mexico in December 2022 and returned to Colorado to face charges; a jury later convicted him of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, and he received consecutive life sentences without parole.

What details about Maria’s life, or about the neighborhood that night, might help explain how this violence unfolded?