Trial begins in drive-by shooting outside Isotopes Park that killed boy, 11, injured cousin

Prosecutors told jurors Monday that Nathen Garley intended to settle a score with a rival when he stood up in the sunroof of a car and fired at least 14 gunshots at a white pickup, killing an 11-year-old boy and leaving the boy’s cousin paralyzed.

But Garley and his co-defendant, Jose Angel Romero, the alleged driver, targeted the wrong white Dodge Ram and instead wrecked the lives of four family members driving home from an Isotopes game in 2023, a prosecutor alleged in opening statements.

“This wasn’t a mistake,” prosecutor Lawrence Hansen told jurors. “The evidence will establish, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Romero and Garley, acting together, intended to kill and/or severely injure the occupants inside that truck and succeeded in those intentions.”

Attorneys for Romero and Garley challenged Hanson’s narrative on Monday, telling jurors that the two men were not responsible for the shootings.

Romero, 24, and Garley, 22, are each charged with first-degree murder and 13 other felonies in the Sept. 6, 2023, attack that killed 11-year-old Froylan Villegas and paralyzed Froylan’s cousin, Tatiana Villegas, who was 23 at the time.

The 2nd Judicial District Court trial is expected to continue through Friday before Judge Emeterio Rudolfo.

A third man charged with identical crimes in the attack is expected to testify this week in the trial of his two co-defendants.

Charges against Daniel Isaac Gomez, 28, who prosecutors said was riding in the back seat of the Dodge Durango, were separated last week from the case against Romero and Garley, prosecutor Collin Brennan said Monday. Gomez has not entered a plea agreement, he said.

Garley’s attorney, Thomas Clark, said in opening statements Monday that the case against Garley relies on the testimony of witnesses who have incentives to lie about their involvement.

“The government’s case is built on three witnesses who have everything to lose if they don’t say what the state wants them to, and everything to gain,” Clark told jurors.

Gomez, the third co-defendant, has a particular incentive to blame Garley and Romero because he was in the Dodge Durango at the time of the shootings, Clark said.

Clark also warned jurors that prosecutors will show emotionally charged photos of Froylan and dramatic testimony by Tatiana Villegas, who was critically injured.

“You are going to have to set these horrific facts aside for a moment when you objectively judge the evidence,” Clark said.

Romero’s attorney, Keren Fenderson, told jurors that Romero is not guilty of charges against him.

“No one is disputing that a beautiful 11-year-old boy was killed,” she said. “What Jose (Romero) is disputing is that he caused this, because he didn’t. He didn’t do it.”

Prosecutors allege that Garley and Romero ran into a rival gang member at the Isotopes baseball game that day and exchanged words inside Isotopes Park. The two men allegedly waited for the man to exit the park in a white pickup but mistakenly targeted a similar truck occupied by the Villegas family.

As the family drove from Isotopes Park on Avenida Cesar Chavez, Froylan Villegas’ mother heard a boom and saw a man hanging out of the sunroof firing a large rifle, she told police.

The mother and her 3-month-old baby were in the backseat of the pickup as bullets riddled their vehicle, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. The mother and infant were not hit by gunfire.

Tatiana Villegas, who was driving the pickup and her cousin, Froylan, who was in the front passenger seat, were struck.

Police doing traffic control outside the Isotopes game heard gunfire around 9 p.m. Officers followed the sounds and found a white truck riddled with bullets on Avenida Cesar Chavez, just west of University.

Surveillance video showed a black Dodge Durango make a U-turn and speed through a red light to pull alongside the Villegas’ pickup as a man fired at the truck from the sunroof, according to the criminal complaint.