On December 11, 2020, 44-year-old Aramis Ortiz was fatally shot at a home on Thrift Road in Madison, Virginia. Deputies from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office answered a call about a domestic incident and found Ortiz suffering from a gunshot wound; he died at the scene. Family members remembered him as a funny, devoted father with a big heart.

Authorities identified Aramis’s older brother, 48-year-old Gregory Alexander Cruz-Ortiz, as the alleged shooter. He was taken into custody at the scene and charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony; he was being held without bond and arraigned in Madison County General District Court with a preliminary hearing set.

What details about that day or the family’s situation might help explain how a verbal altercation turned fatal? Anyone with information is asked to come forward.