Texas man drives to Colorado to kill woman trying to end their relationship, officials say

A woman was fatally shot by the man she was trying to break up with, Colorado officials said.

Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

In March 2022, the victim separated from her partner of 12 years and met 33-year-old Ricardo Perales-Cordero online, according to the Adams and Broomfield Colorado District Attorney’s Office in a Nov. 12 news release.

Perales-Cordero lived in Houston, Texas, so the two began a long-distance relationship, prosecutors said.

A few days before the killing, the woman tried to end her relationship with Perales-Cordero, officials said.

Then, days later, he arranged to meet with the woman at a Quality Inn hotel in Brighton, Colorado, officials said.

Hotel employees heard fighting, and then two gunshots, officials said.

Perales-Cordero was seen leaving the hotel in his car, and when staff entered the room, they found the woman dead on the bed, officials said.

He was later arrested in Trinidad, about a 220-mile drive south of Brighton, officials said.

He admitted to killing the woman after “she asked him to do so as part of a suicide pact since the two could not be together,” the release said.

“This defendant, rather than let the victim return to her children, murdered her in cold blood in a Brighton hotel,” District Attorney Brian Mason said in the release. “It is heartbreaking to see another incident of domestic violence take the life of a mother, who now leaves behind her children and family.”

A jury returned a guilty verdict in less than two hours, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole following a conviction of first-degree murder, officials said.

Brighton is about a 20-mile drive northeast of Denver.

This story was originally published November 12, 2024 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Texas man drives to Colorado to kill woman trying to end their relationship, officials say."