8 SEPTEMBER 4-10, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | least one week, according to the autopsy report, shot in the abdomen with a single round of nine-millimeter ammunition. The manner of death was homicide. The Jane Doe was later identified as Tverberg, a 21-year-old resident of Hen- derson whose family had been looking for her for days. Tverberg was living with her mother at the time of her death, searching for a new apartment and working at a local conve- nience store. She’d left home on December 9 for an extended celebration of her 21st birth- day, which was on December 16; Gonzales kept up with her daughter via social media messages. The replies stopped coming after December 17. Shortly after the discovery of the body, police arrived on her doorstep. “The police said they wanted to inform me that they found my daughter deceased,” Gonzales recalls, crying. “She is my only child. She is my best friend. She is all I want. I would lose my life for her in a second.” The man reported Tverberg’s death to 911, later telling investigators that he had given someone permission to stay at his apartment while he was in jail: a fellow inmate’s girlfriend named Lindsay Jenson, according to a search warrant from January 2020. Fingerprints lifted from beer bottles in the apartment identifi ed two other people allegedly present at the crime scene: David Vargas and Sanchez, according to his arrest af- fi davit. Detective Martinez claims that Sanchez, Vargas and Jenson were the only people inside the apartment when Tverberg was shot in the early hours of December 18 — and only one of them could have pulled the trigger — citing physical evidence, digital data and witness in- terviews. None of the suspects nor their attorneys responded to inquiries from Westword. Tverberg was familiar with the three suspects through her boyfriend at the time, Adalberto “Beto” Chavez. During an interroga- tion, Chavez reportedly told detectives that he brought Tverberg to the Adams County apartment so that she could speak to the three because they were upset with her. According to Martinez, Chavez claimed that a few days before her murder, Tverberg took him, Vargas and Jenson to a drug dealer and the dealer tried to rob the group. Vargas and Jenson accused Tverberg and Chavez of setting them up, which they denied. Chavez said that he brought Tverberg to the apart- ment, left to pick up weed, and returned as everyone was running away, yelling that cops were coming. Martinez says Chavez’s digital footprint and other interviews corroborate his movements. “Her boyfriend [says he] brought her over so they could scare her,” Martinez says. “If he knew what they were going to do, if he knew to what ex- tent, we don’t know.” On December 16, 2019 — the day of Tverberg’s 21st birth- day and ten days before her body was found — Tverberg told mul- tiple people that she had been jumped and robbed, according to the search warrant. The warrant notes that Chavez suffered a gunshot wound to his arm during an altercation in Denver that same day. This incident appears to align with the timing of the reported drug deal-turned- robbery, though Gonzales describes the circumstances very differently in speaking with Westword. She claims Tverberg, Chavez and Vargas were at a party in Denver when Chavez assaulted Tverberg, who then called a friend for help. The friend allegedly showed up with a carload of people and a confl ict ensued, culminating in a shootout and in Tverberg being jumped. Tverberg’s friends and family describe Chavez as extremely physically abusive. Gonzales claims he beat her daughter on numerous occasions and isolated her from her loved ones. She speculates that Chavez would have allowed Tverberg to take the fall if he got into trouble. “I still believe she lost her life because of her boyfriend,” Gonzales says. “I believe that he’d do anything to save his own ass from what was about to come down on him. And I believe my daughter was blamed and used as a pawn and murdered for no reason.” Three months after Tverberg’s death, Chavez was arrested in connection to a dif- ferent murder: the fatal shooting of 17-year- old Jeremiah Baca in Denver in January 2020. Chavez is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for the crime. While it is possible that Chavez or- chestrated the circumstances leading to Tverberg’s murder, or had knowledge of it, Detective Martinez maintains that the only plausible gunman is Sanchez, Jenson or Vargas. “We were able to posi- tively identify the four peo- ple, and Alicia was one of them, who were in the apart- ment at the time of the inci- dent,” Martinez says, adding that physical evidence indi- cates Tverberg was killed in the same spot her body was found. “I am fairly confi dent that there was an argument in the apartment, and I am confi dent that Mario, Lind- say and David were a part of that,” he asserts. “And I am confi dent that Mario Sanchez is the one who murdered Alicia.” The Case Against Sanchez Authorities arrived at the Commerce City home of Sanchez’s mother on Jan- uary 23, 2020, wanting to discuss why they had found his fi ngerprints at the scene of a murder. Sanchez agreed to go to the station for questioning, while offi cers remained at the house awaiting a search warrant. Hours later, a family member arrived to retrieve a dog from the home; an offi cer escorted the woman as she searched for a leash inside a child’s bedroom, where Sanchez had slept the night before. But when she opened a dresser drawer, rather than a leash, the of- fi cer saw a nine-millimeter handgun inside. Ballistics determined that the handgun was the weapon used to kill Tverberg, ac- cording to Sanchez’s arrest affi davit. San- chez’s DNA was also later found on the gun. When interrogated, Sanchez admitted to possessing the fi rearm, claiming he’d “found it” in an alley a month prior; Sanchez is a convicted felon who is not legally allowed to own fi rearms, the affi davit notes. Sanchez is a self-admitted member of the Bloods street gang with a lengthy criminal history, which at the time included four felony convictions and one misdemeanor assault involving domestic violence, according to the affi davit. Sanchez reportedly acknowledged his presence in the apartment during the fatal shooting of Tverberg — though he described her death as an accident, telling detectives that the gun fell out of his backpack and “just went off.” He claimed he didn’t “even know how the fuck this shit happened,” the affi davit notes. That allegation does not align with physi- cal evidence. The autopsy report found that Tverberg’s bullet wound had a downward trajectory, meaning the gunshot came from above the height of her abdomen. If the fi re- arm fell onto the fl oor and fi red on its own, the wound path would be upward. The search warrant for Sanchez’s moth- er’s home details social media interactions between Sanchez and Jenson that could suggest involvement in the crime. Two weeks before the murder, Sanchez messaged Jenson on Facebook asking for nine-millimeter bullets, after Jenson asked Sanchez about the price of “a ball of blk,” presumably referring to heroin, the warrant reads. In the hours and days after the murder, Jenson called and messaged Sanchez repeat- edly to no response, in addition to sending other people frantic messages, including “it’s a 911 and we need to fi nd Mario asap,” and telling someone not to go to “the apartment” “like ever...we were never there.” Detective Martinez says investigators tried to question Jenson and Vargas, but both refused to talk. He believes the only thing that will lead to a prosecution is if one of the three suspects confesses, or points the fi nger at one of the others. “We have the gun, we have the digital data, we have the interviews as far as they can take us,” Martinez says. “We’ve sat at the table thinking, ‘What could we get?’ The only thing that we haven’t gotten is an admission from Mario or one of the witnesses saying they positively saw him pull the trigger. At this point, unfortunately, that’s what I think it would take.” Tverberg continued from page 7 continued on page 10 Alicia Tverberg on the Crime Stoppers fl ier. METRO DENVER CRIME STOPPERS ADAMS COUNT Y SHERIFF’S OFFICE JEFFERSON COUNT Y SHERIFF’S OFFICE From left to right: Mario Sanchez, Lindsay Jenson, and David Vargas.
