Corina Ann Leyva, a 41-year-old Hispanic mother and grandmother, was remembered by her family as their “Reina,” or queen, a radiant woman who loved to dance and could light up any room. A widow since 2019, she was a devoted mother to her six children. In the summer of 2021, Corina was also caring for her own mother, who had just returned home after a six-month hospital stay. The day before she died, Corina brought her mother a bouquet of roses and they shared coffee together.
In the early morning of July 3, 2021, police in Phoenix, Arizona, responded to a suicide call at a home near 51st Avenue and Osborn Road around 4:30 a.m. Inside, they found Corina Leyva on the floor of a bedroom, deceased from a gunshot wound to the head. A handgun was lying on the floor next to her right hand.
Corina’s boyfriend, 42-year-old Guillermo Diaz, was at the home and told officers that Corina had shot herself.
He claimed that he, Corina, and his 7-year-old son were in bed when Corina became upset during an argument, grabbed a gun from a dresser drawer, and shot herself as he tried to take it away from her.
However, when investigators spoke with Diaz’s young son, the boy told them his father had lied. The child reported that Diaz had hit Corina, and then he heard a gunshot. When police confronted Diaz with this information, his story changed. He then admitted that he and Corina had been drinking and arguing. He claimed that when he tried to take the gun away, he fell to the floor and the weapon accidentally discharged, striking Corina. Diaz told police he had lied because he was afraid and confessed to moving the gun next to Corina’s hand before officers arrived.
Corina's family later told reporters that her relationship with Diaz, which had lasted less than five months, was controlling and abusive. They said they had called the police multiple times to report his violence and that he had once threatened to kill Corina in front of her children.
Following their investigation into the shooting, police arrested Guillermo Diaz. He was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with Corina Leyva’s death. As of his arrest in July 2021, the case was proceeding through the legal system.
