U.S. 24 homicide victim found with 3 gunshots to head, court records say
Courtesy of KOAA
The man found dead in the passenger seat of a pickup truck after a three-vehicle crash on U.S. 24 in late August was allegedly shot three times on the left side of the face and once in the neck, according to court documents.
A person involved in the crash told El Paso County Sheriff’s Office detectives that the man, 29-year-old Noel Gutierrez-Cano, had a towel on his face and was covered in blood, according to the suspect’s arrest affidavit.
Noel Gutierrez-Cano was riding in a vehicle involved in a three-car crash on U.S. Highway 24 on Aug. 26, 2025. Authorities say he suffered at least one gunshot wound, but how and why that happened remains unclear.
Jose Cruz Diaz Vazquez, 26, was arrested in connection to Gutierrez-Cano’s death, whose remains were found inside a truck hauling a black trailer after a wreck Aug. 26 near Judge Orr Road in unincorporated El Paso County. As of Wednesday, the suspect remained behind bars in New Mexico, where he was found and arrested. He is expected to be extradited to El Paso County .
Jose Cruz Diaz Vazquez, 26, was arrested in connection to the death of Noel Gutierrez-Cano, 29, whose remains were found inside the passenger seat of a white truck after the crash near Judge Orr Road in unincorporated El Paso County the morning of Aug. 26.
What led to the shooting and the extent of the relationship between the two remains unclear, but the suspect allegedly told investigators that he was hauling stolen ATVs with Gutierrez-Cano and two others the day before the killing, the affidavit states.
The group was using the trailer, also stolen, to haul the ATVs, the affidavit says.
Diaz Vazquez’s wife told investigators that her husband is best friend’s with one of the individuals, “Hector.” She noted that Hector is known to steal cars and take them to El Paso, Texas, and Mexico and also sells cocaine, and that her husband likely helps.
The day before the killing, the wife told investigators that her husband had communicated with her on Facetime and said they were getting some ATVs in Bennett, just east of metro Denver. She said she saw three people present: Hector, her husband and Gutierrez-Cano, who she didn’t know until he was later identified as the person killed.
After initially saying he was at home the day of the crash, Diaz Vazquez, who the wife notes tends to “make up stories”, told detectives during his interview that he met Gutierrez-Cano on U.S. 24 shortly after midnight Aug. 26 to get gas — but failed to do so because they only had cash, and the stations were closed.
Diaz Vazquez said he went to his home in Commerce City, located in Adams County, to get a card to buy gas, but Gutierrez-Cano was gone when he came back, the affidavit states. He denied being in the truck with Gutierrez-Cano during the wreck.
However, his wife said he confessed to the killing, noting to investigators that her husband told her that he fired off the rounds but wasn’t aiming at Gutierrez-Cano, according to the affidavit.
She stated that she believed he was lying because he can get “very angry” and do things “without caring,” explaining that he would often hit, choke and assault her and then act as if nothing happened and make up stories about it later.
Investigators also connected Diaz Vazquez to the scene immediately after the crash.
Following the wreck, witnesses told investigators they saw the driver of the truck, a stolen 2013 GMC Sierra with a Texas license plate, flee from the scene on foot while attempts to resuscitate Gutierrez-Cano were made.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, a tipster reported seeing another white truck pick up the driver further down the road before driving off.
Body-cam footage connects Diaz Vazquez, an alleged undocumented immigrant from Mexico, to a traffic stop immediately after the crash when deputies saw a truck make an illegal turn off the highway onto Judge Orr Road.
Dash-cam footage shows one of the two men inside the vehicle reach under the seat to either “hide or get something,” the affidavit states.
Neither of the occupants had a driver’s license, vehicle registration or insurance, so the car was impounded, the Sheriff’s Office stated in a news release Wednesday.
During a search of the truck days later, investigators found a .22 Ruger Mark 1 firearm under the passenger’s seat, matching the description of a “small gun with a long barrel” that the wife gave to law enforcement. A box of .22 live rounds inside the truck was reportedly missing 10 rounds: six believed to be in the gun and the other four believed to be used to shoot Gutierrez-Cano.
On Sept. 3, authorities learned that Diaz Vazquez was arrested in Las Vegas, N.M., on an unrelated outstanding warrant. Inside his truck , investigators said it was “packed to the limit” with clothing, dishes, pictures and other items, leading them to believe he was trying to flee to New Mexico or Mexico. A shirt with an apparent blood stain was also found.
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Diaz Vazquez is being held at the Doña Anna County jail in Las Cruces, N.M., on a $500,000 cash-only bond and faces a second-degree murder charge. Officials do not release the dates for extraditions for the sake of safety.
Not much is known about Gutierrez-Cano, but investigators state in the affidavit that he had multiple active warrants and has a criminal history of auto theft, felony theft and possession of dangerous drugs.
In February 2024, a Gutierrez-Cano under a registered address in Aurora with the same date of birth was arrested in Douglas County for second-degree car theft. In the affidavit, it states the suspect was driving a stolen vehicle registered in West Virginia.
The driver self-identified with a Mexican voter card as Noel Gutierrez-Cano. Inside the car, deputies allegedly found 91.4 grams of marijuana. He bonded out of jail a few days after his arrest, a spokesperson for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office told The Gazette.
In May 2023, a Gutierrez-Cano with the same date of birth was charged with unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing or sale of illegal drugs after Denver police found nearly 500 colored fentanyl pills and another 246 tan-colored pills suspected to be fentanyl in his car, according to the arrest affidavit. The pills were stamped with a label that said “M 30,” which typically refers to oxycodone or Percocet.
“The amount of drugs seized combined with the separated and sorted packaging indicate distribution and not mere possession,” an officer stated in the affidavit.
Authorities did not confirm if the person arrested is the same Gutierrez-Cano as the one found dead on U.S. 24, nor if he is also a suspected undocumented immigrant.
“We are still doing some investigating,” said Kurt Smith, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office in El Paso County.