LAS VEGAS (WKRC) – After evading police for nearly 16 years, a man pled guilty to murdering his ex-girlfriend’s teenage boyfriend when he found him hiding in her closet.
According to court documents obtained by local outlet KLAS, 35-year-old Jonathan Romero forced his way into his ex-girlfriend’s home on July 18, 2008, when he was just 19 years old. Romero and his ex-girlfriend broke up months prior to the incident, and she had started dating 18-year-old David Manriquez.
“He looks into the room on the left and then he goes into the master bedroom and… David Manriquez was hiding in the closet,” Romero’s ex-girlfriend testified. “He tries to stop him and then he shot him in the back of the head.”
Romero’s ex claimed that he shot Manriquez multiple times, including once in the back of the head.
“There was a blood trail that led from inside the house out the front door and down, I want to say, several blocks,” said retired detective Barry Jensen.
Romero went on the run after the murder, but was captured in Mexico in May 2025, according to Law&Crime. He initially pled not guilty to his charges, but accepted a plea deal in early February to plead guilty to first-degree murder.
“We just want him to pay [for] what he did to my son,” said Manriquez’s father Jaime Manriquez.
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