20-year-old charged as a juvenile in 2020 killing outside Albuquerque McDonald's

In 2020 Tommy Gutierrez, a young man living on the streets, was gunned down outside a McDonald’s on Coors. The 21-year-old had been reportedly defending a friend being harassed by a group of teens when one opened fire.

Within weeks, 15-year-old Alijah Archuleta was identified as a possible suspect — the casing from the bullet that killed Gutierrez matched a shooting Archuleta allegedly committed 10 days later.

But the case went cold, and Archuleta grew up. At 18, he was charged in a domestic dispute and two shootings before being shot by police during a confrontation on the West Side.

As Archuleta went through the court system — eventually being released to await sentencing in a separate case — detectives renewed focus on the Gutierrez homicide. And on Friday, a judge ordered the now 20-year-old to stay in custody on an open count of murder.

The evidence against Archuleta, according to court records, had not gotten much stronger and rested largely on the bullet casing match. Gutierrez’s friend who saw the shooting couldn’t pick Archuleta out of a lineup last October, telling police, “it was so long ago.”

The 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office would not identify Archuleta on Friday because he committed the crime as a juvenile. But a judge signed a warrant for Archuleta’s arrest in March after Albuquerque police detectives filed a criminal complaint and affidavit seeking his arrest.

Archuleta is behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center, but the homicide case was transferred to Children’s Court.

Archuleta’s family could not be reached Saturday.

A shooting gone cold

On Oct. 10, 2020, officers responded to a shooting at the McDonald’s on Coors, just south of Iliff, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Gutierrez was found near the drive-thru with a gunshot wound to the chest.

He died at the scene.

Police said witnesses told them they heard gunfire and saw four people inside a red sedan speed away from the area. On Oct. 26, detectives learned the casing matched a shooting 10 days later, where Archuleta was caught on surveillance footage as the suspect.

Detectives found Snapchat messages from Archuleta bragging about the Oct. 26 shooting but not mentioning the Gutierrez homicide, according to the complaint.

No further investigation related to Archuleta is documented until June 2022, when police interviewed him at home. Police said he told them he “didn’t know anything” about the homicide and had bought the gun from someone else.

Detectives searched Archuleta’s iCloud account and found news articles about Gutierrez’s killing, the complaint states. No further investigation is documented until April 2024 when detectives again tried to speak with Archuleta, but he refused.

Police said they accessed recorded jail calls between Archuleta and his mother in which he says he “wasn’t there” during the homicide and “I’m just going to forget about it, forget I know anything.” Detectives interviewed a man in jail who told them he was there at the McDonald’s and Archuleta was with the group that shot Gutierrez.

Another man police spoke with said he was told by a witness that Archuleta was the shooter, according to the complaint. Detectives listened to additional recorded jail calls where Archuleta again tells his mother he wasn’t involved in the homicide.

Police said in October 2024, a detective on the case found the woman Gutierrez was with when he was killed, writing “I had been looking for her since 2020.” The woman told police they were panhandling when four “youngsters” in a maroon car harassed her for being homeless.

She told police Gutierrez was “very protective” of her and began arguing with the group, who pulled out guns and the driver fired a shot into the air, according to the complaint. The woman said she and Gutierrez started to walk away and she heard the group arguing, “why didn’t you just shoot him?”

Police said the woman told them she heard a voice say “you know what? (expletive) it” followed by a gun cocking and a single shot. She told police Gutierrez stumbled and fell to the ground, asking her “what happened.”

The woman told police “It went through his heart ... there was a lot of blood, I just tried to make it as peaceful as I could for him,” according to the complaint. The woman said it had been a long time but she could “possibly” identify the shooter.

Police said she picked the wrong photo out of a lineup, the one right beside Archuleta’s.