Man chased down, shot and left to die on sidewalk, El Paso police say

• Samuel Louis Baca chased down, shot and killed
• Tristan Alexander Colgrove arrested on murder charge
• Police: Friend lied about being shooter, then changed his mind

A man was chased down, shot and left to die on a sidewalk following accusations of domestic violence at a Northeast El Paso apartment earlier this month, court documents state.

El Paso police homicide detectives had to sift through lies and viewpoints from a group of friends, who eventually pointed fingers at Tristan Alexander Colgrove, 24, as the alleged killer, a complaint affidavit stated.

Colgrove faces a murder charge in the death of Samuel Louis Baca, 26, whose body was found by a passerby on the morning of July 8 on a sidewalk next to an alley on Byron Street between Keltner and Fred Wilson avenues in the Logan Heights neighborhood.

Funeral services are pending in Plainview, Texas, for Baca, who was from the tiny West Texas town of Hale Center, between Lubbock and Amarillo, according to an online obituary.

Some homicides are solved by DNA evidence. Others by cyber data. In this case, detectives followed a blood trail from the body to an apartment on the next block, where they located Colgrove and his friends, documents stated.

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A bullet casing was found by the body and an unspent bullet was found on the ground on the blood trail path to an apartment at the corner of Fred Wilson Avenue and Byron Street, the complaint affidavit added.

In the affidavit, detectives stated that after interviewing witnesses the investigation allegedly determined that Colgrove pushed Baca down the stairs of the apartment building and assaulted Baca. Baca attempted to run away and was chased by Colgrove, who had a gun. Gunshots were heard. Colgrove was seen running away from the scene with a gun. The gun was found in Colgrove's apartment.

Colgrove's attorney has not issued a comment.

'Are we going to shoot him?'

The incident began when a woman, who was at her grandma's house playing PlayStation video games online with her friend Colgrove, who goes by "T," received a text from her mother telling her and her brother to go home because the mom's boyfriend, Baca, was refusing to leave. The daughter told Colgrove what was going on between Baca and her mom.

The woman's mom (Baca's girlfriend) and Colgrove reside in separate apartment buildings in the same 3400 block of Fred Wilson Avenue.

Colgrove and two male friends decided they were going to go "jump" Baca, a witness told investigators. "Are we going to shoot him?" one man asked, according to the affidavit. "No," Colgrove responded, saying they were just going to "(expletive) him up."

Another female friend told detectives that Colgrove and his buddies asked her to come along and to bring her handgun, a .40-caliber Keltec. She told the men that they were stupid. She knew something was going to happen and went with them anyway, walking down an alley to the mom's apartment, the affidavit stated.

Domestic abuse allegations

Baca 's girlfriend (mother of the woman playing PlayStation with Colgrove) told investigators that Baca had been living with her for about a week, the affidavit stated. On July 7, the couple was arguing and Baca took her into a bedroom, locked the door, would not let her leave and at one point pinned her up against a wall, bruising her arm. The arguing went on for a couple of hours and she was really scared, she told detectives.

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The woman phoned her daughter, did not speak, but her daughter could hear what was occurring, the document stated.

About 12:30 a.m. July 8, Baca's girlfriend's daughter and son got to the apartment. "Baca answered the door and became very upset that her kids arrived," the girlfriend told police, the affidavit stated. The daughter told Baca to grab his things and leave. Baca grabbed his backpack when Colgrove and another man "all of a sudden" showed up and told Baca to leave, the mom told investigators.

'OK, I'm going'

"OK, I'm going," Baca told Colgrove after walking out of the second-floor apartment. Witnesses said that Colgrove then pushed Baca down the stairs. Baca fell, got up and the men began fighting in the stairway.

During the fight, witnesses told investigators that Baca took out a knife and tried to cut Colgrove in the neck, but ended up slashing his arm. Baca then ran toward Byron Street while Colgrove ran in the opposite direction, the affidavit stated.

The woman holding the gun was sitting by a rock wall on the side of the apartment building when Colgrove ran up, bleeding heavily from his arm and face, and grabbed the gun from her and ran after Baca, the affidavit stated.

Witnesses described hearing two gunshots. Some witnesses saw Colgrove standing over Baca, who was on the ground and not moving.

Colgrove, his two male friends and the woman who brought the gun, soon got into her vehicle and drove to New Mexico to get Colgrove medical help for his knife wound. As they drove down the back alleyway of the apartments leading to Byron Street, they saw Baca was still on the ground. They did not stop. No one called 911. They just drove on past, the affidavit stated.

About 6:15 a.m. after sunrise on a hazy morning, a person who was walking called 911 to report a man down on the sidewalk. Police arrived to find that Baca was dead.

Friend takes murder 'rap,' then decides against it

On the drive to New Mexico, Colgrove told his friends that one of them would have to take the "rap" for the shooting and claim it was self-defense because Colgrove had felonies in Indianapolis, witnesses told investigators, the affidavit stated.

Colgrove's friends initially told detectives that a homeless man with a knife tried to rob them in the alley. They left, got the gun and confronted Baca. One friend claimed Baca attempted to grab the gun from his hand and he pulled the trigger and shot him. He then hid the gun under the kitchen stove in Colgrove's apartment, the affidavit stated.

About 9:40 p.m., Colgrove's friend, who first claimed he was the shooter, was sitting in a holding cell at the offices of the Crimes Against Persons Unit at El Paso Police Headquarters when he asked to speak again with a detective, the affidavit stated.

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The friend told a detective he had lied about shooting Baca because he believed he had a self-defense claim. The friend said that the shooter was actually Colgrove. He added the second friend could confirm that Colgrove was the shooter, the affidavit stated.

In a follow-up interview, the second friend admitted he lied about being robbed by a homeless man and said the three of them went to the apartment looking for Baca, the affidavit stated. The second friend initially claimed the first friend was the shooter, then claimed Colgrove was the shooter and now claimed he didn't know who was the shooter, but he was sure he saw Colgrove with the gun before and after the shooting.