Prosecutors assembled a timeline they said showed deliberate action before two killings, while the defense argued intoxication undermined proof of premeditation.
SANTA FE, N.M. — The first-degree murder case against Jose Antonio “Adrian” Roman was built around a sequence prosecutors said required purposeful decisions: more than 100 unanswered messages, a shotgun obtained in Albuquerque, a roughly 60-mile drive to Santa Fe and gunfire at the home of the former partner who had recently sought protection from him.
A Santa Fe County jury accepted the state’s central argument in April, convicting Roman, 47, of two counts of first-degree willful and deliberate murder in the November 2023 deaths of Carmen Navarrete de Gonzales and her 15-year-old son, Axel Gonzales. Jurors also found him guilty of shooting at a dwelling or occupied building and aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon. Four months later, District Court Judge Jason Lidyard imposed two consecutive life sentences and another 10½ years, rejecting the defense argument that Roman’s intoxication warranted less severe punishment.
The prosecution’s theory began before Roman ever reached Santa Fe. His relationship with Navarrete de Gonzales had ended after an alleged assault, and she filed for a protective order. In the petition, she accused Roman of violence and threats and made clear that she wanted no further contact. A temporary order was issued days before the killings. Prosecutors said Roman nevertheless continued reaching out electronically and sent more than 100 text messages without receiving a response.
The messages were important because prosecutors did not ask jurors to view the shooting as an isolated confrontation. The state constructed a chronology in which Roman repeatedly tried to contact a woman who had ended their relationship and sought protection from him, then obtained a firearm and headed toward her home. By connecting those events, prosecutors sought to establish the deliberation required for the first-degree murder charges rather than merely proving that Roman caused the two deaths.
Investigators said the sequence became more urgent when Roman obtained a pump-action shotgun belonging to his son and left Albuquerque. His son became concerned enough to contact police and report that Roman was intoxicated, had taken the gun and might be heading toward Navarrete de Gonzales. Law enforcement officers in Santa Fe were sent toward her residence. Emergency calls from the home followed as the response was developing.
What happened after Roman reached the residence became one of the major factual disputes at trial. Prosecutors said he fired at the home and entered it before killing Navarrete de Gonzales and Axel in different parts of the house. Evidence presented by the state placed Navarrete de Gonzales in her bedroom and Axel elsewhere inside the residence. Other family members were present but survived. Roman fled from the immediate area as officers arrived and was arrested two days later.
The defense offered a different interpretation of that night. Roman did not rely on a claim that somebody else was responsible for firing the shotgun. Instead, his lawyer attacked the state’s proof of deliberation and emphasized Roman’s consumption of alcohol and cocaine. The defense also disputed portions of the prosecution’s reconstruction of the shooting, arguing that shots had been fired through windows and challenging whether the evidence established Roman’s movements through the house exactly as the state described them.
That distinction went to the heart of the murder charges. To obtain first-degree willful and deliberate murder convictions, prosecutors had to persuade jurors of Roman’s state of mind rather than simply establish that he fired fatal shots. The defense sought to use intoxication and uncertainty about the precise sequence inside the residence to undermine that element. The prosecution answered by directing jurors to decisions Roman made over time, beginning before the drive north from Albuquerque.
Among the evidence prosecutors emphasized was the condition of Roman’s relationship with Navarrete de Gonzales. Her protective-order petition documented that she wanted contact to stop, and the lack of responses to Roman’s messages showed that his repeated attempts to communicate were not producing a conversation. The state then asked jurors to consider what Roman did next: obtain a shotgun, leave Albuquerque and arrive at the Santa Fe residence where Navarrete de Gonzales was staying with family.
The jury returned its answer April 22. Roman was convicted on both first-degree murder counts as well as the aggravated burglary and shooting charges. The verdicts meant jurors found the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the killings were willful and deliberate despite the defense arguments about intoxication and the disputed reconstruction of events inside the home.
The same debate resurfaced at sentencing in August. Roman’s attorneys asked Lidyard to let the life sentences run at the same time and again raised his drug and alcohol use. The judge was not persuaded. Lidyard said Roman’s ability to travel approximately 60 miles, find the intended location while armed and carry out the acts underlying the convictions demonstrated purposeful conduct. He characterized the evidence of deliberate murder as unusually clear and ordered the life terms to run consecutively.
The evidentiary case had taken years to reach that point. During pretrial proceedings in 2024, disputes arose over forensic material and expert-witness information. Prosecutors later dismissed the state murder charges while stating that they planned to refile them after further preparation. Roman remained detained and also faced a separate federal prosecution, in which he pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm. The state charges subsequently returned and proceeded to trial in 2026.
Those procedural complications meant the prosecution’s chronology of Nov. 13, 2023, was not tested before a jury until more than two years after the killings. When the trial finally occurred, the state’s argument rested on accumulation rather than one decisive item of evidence. Prosecutors linked the breakup, protective order, ignored messages, acquisition of the shotgun, warning from Roman’s son, drive to Santa Fe, shooting and flight into a single sequence they said established intent.
Outside the courtroom, the consequences of that sequence had been evident from the beginning. Axel was a sophomore at Capital High School, where friends gathered shortly after his death for a balloon release. Students remembered him as someone who cared about the people close to him. His family and classmates experienced the losses years before jurors heard arguments about deliberation, intoxication or forensic evidence.
Navarrete de Gonzales’ relatives also remained involved through the end of the case. Her mother traveled from Mexico following the killings and later addressed Roman in court through a translator before sentencing. The hearing gave the victims’ family a formal place in proceedings that had otherwise centered largely on evidence, intent, legal standards and the length of Roman’s imprisonment.
With the consecutive sentences imposed, the prosecution’s interpretation of the evidence has now prevailed at both the guilt and sentencing stages. The jury concluded Roman deliberately killed Navarrete de Gonzales and Axel, and Lidyard rejected the argument that intoxication justified allowing punishment for the two murders to overlap. Roman remains under the state sentences, while any challenge to the convictions or punishment would move through the appropriate appellate or post-conviction process.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.