Trial begins in 2019 killing at a Central Avenue motel

Testimony began Monday in the trial of a man who prosecutors say fatally shot 43-year-old Leroy Zamora at a Central Avenue motel in 2019.

Vicente Rivera, 35, is charged with first-degree murder and other charges in Zamora’s shooting death at the Crossroads Motel near Central and Interstate 25.

Both prosecution and defense attorneys told jurors on Monday that the trial was likely to leave questions unanswered about Zamora’s death .

“The reality is, in this case, there might be some unanswered questions and that’s simply because the only individual who could answer them is deceased,” Assistant District Attorney Klarice Medina said in opening statements.

“Leroy (Zamora) had his struggles,” Medina told jurors. “But I don’t want that to distract you from the reason that we’re here, and that reason is to prove, again, that Vicente Rivera murdered Leroy Zamora.”

Zamora’s longtime partner testified Monday that Zamora’s heroin use prompted her to kick him out of her home less than a week before he was killed.

Rivera’s attorney, Richard Pugh, told jurors that prosecutors would not be able to show who killed Zamora, or why.

“You will never know why Leroy Zamora was shot, period,” Pugh said Monday in opening statements. “You’re never going to know the circumstances of the shooting or who shot Leroy Zamora.”

Zamora’s partner, Brianna Pinzon, told jurors that she had known Zamora since childhood and the two had a child together. She described Zamora as a good father. “He was a great fiancé to me,” she said.

She forced Zamora to leave her home after he left a used syringe in a place in their home where their son found it.

Albuquerque police were dispatched to the Crossroads Motel at about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2019, where they found that Zamora with a gunshot wound. He later died at University of New Mexico Hospital.

A police spokesman said days after the killing that police had “limited offender information” at the time.

Pinzon told an Albuquerque Journal reporter then that a stranger called her the day after Zamora’s killing and said he had found Zamora’s wallet with Pinzon’s phone number inside.

Pinzon told the reporter she didn’t know who her partner was with or what he was doing when he was shot.

Prosecutors showed jurors the contents of Zamora’s wallet, which contained the note written by Pinzon listing her phone number to call “in case of emergency.”

Pinzon also testified that Zamora was eager to return to her home in the days prior to his death because he believed his life was in danger and that he had been shot and injured several months before he was killed.