Thursday, July 8, 2010

Twin Falls, ID: Suspect in Idaho shooting arrested in Grand Junction

Thomas Trevino



Mesa County sheriff’s deputies, with the help of a bloodhound, search 23 Road on Wednesday for the gun used in an Idaho shooting.


By Paul Shockley
Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Video surveillance reportedly shows 30-year-old Thomas Trevino Jr. in the lobby of an Idaho hotel on Monday before his girlfriend was found shot in the head at a room there, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Trevino, 30, had been denied by hotel staff a key to the room where the 24-year-old woman was staying, shortly before she was shot on Monday, the affidavit said.

Trevino, a Twin Falls, Idaho, resident, was arrested Wednesday in Grand Junction after he was spotted by a local resident around 7:30 a.m. walking along the side of the road near 23 and K roads. The resident called 911, and deputies were dispatched to the area and arrested Trevino, Mesa County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Lisa McCammon said.

Trevino, who was the focus of an intensive manhunt Tuesday by several local agencies, wasn’t armed when he was arrested, McCammon said.

Grant Loeb, a prosecutor in Twin Falls, said he wasn’t aware of any ties to the Grand Junction area explaining Trevino’s 500-plus-mile trip.

Idaho authorities Tuesday pursued a $200,000 warrant for Trevino’s arrest on suspicion of aggravated battery.

Authorities were called Monday around 1:40 p.m. after an employee at the Comfort Inn in Twin Falls found Trevino’s girlfriend lying on the floor in one of the rooms with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Trevino’s affidavit.

Video surveillance at the hotel reportedly shows a man, believed to be Trevino, leaving the hotel around 1:38 p.m. Monday, accompanied by a Dalmatian dog, according to the affidavit. A similar dog was found at Trevino’s Twin Falls home, while a neighbor recalled Trevino talking on a cell phone outside the home, two suitcases in tow next to a red Jeep Cherokee, the affidavit said.

Loeb on Wednesday afternoon said the victim was still alive, but didn’t know her specific condition.

The Times-News newspaper in Twin Falls reported Trevino was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted in October 1998 of aggravated assault in Twin Falls County. Trevino served a four-month suspended sentence after a September 1994 conviction for carrying a concealed weapon on school property.

He also was arrested on a burglary charge in September 1998, but the charge was later dropped, the newspaper said.

No comments: