The punishment of Jose Antonio “Adrian” Roman followed a student memorial, prolonged litigation and a jury’s first-degree murder verdicts.
SANTA FE, N.M. — Long before a judge imposed two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Carmen Navarrete de Gonzales and her 15-year-old son, Axel Gonzales, the loss had reached a Santa Fe high school, where Axel’s friends gathered to remember a sophomore they said cared deeply about the people around him.
The August sentencing of Jose Antonio “Adrian” Roman, 47, came nearly three years after the November 2023 killings and more than two years after that early student memorial. A Santa Fe County jury convicted Roman in April of two counts of first-degree willful and deliberate murder as well as aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon and shooting at an occupied building. District Court Judge Jason Lidyard ordered the life sentences to run consecutively and added 10½ years for the other convictions, bringing the state case through its trial and sentencing stages.
Axel was a student at Capital High School when he and his mother were killed in their home in western Santa Fe. In the days after his death, classmates organized a balloon release and remembered a friend who they said could make difficult days better and who cared about his family. The gathering offered one of the earliest public views of the case from outside police reports and court filings. While investigators concentrated on evidence and the search for Roman, Axel’s peers were dealing with the sudden absence of a classmate from their everyday lives.
For Navarrete de Gonzales’ family, the aftermath also crossed national borders. Her mother traveled from Mexico following the killings and later spoke during Roman’s sentencing through a court translator. Her remarks centered on the deaths of her daughter and grandson and on Roman facing punishment. Those words came at the end of a prosecution that had taken several unexpected procedural turns before a jury was able to decide the murder charges.
Roman was arrested two days after the Nov. 13, 2023, shootings. Authorities said his relationship with Navarrete de Gonzales had recently ended and that she had sought a protective order against him after alleging violence and threats. A temporary no-contact order was issued days before she and Axel were killed. Roman continued attempting to reach her, sending more than 100 text messages that received no answer, according to evidence and reporting from the case.
On the night of the killings, prosecutors said Roman obtained a pump-action shotgun belonging to his son and left Albuquerque. His son contacted police because he feared Roman, who had been drinking, might be traveling to harm Navarrete de Gonzales. A welfare check was dispatched in Santa Fe. Emergency calls from the residence followed, and a deputy reached the area as Roman was leaving. Roman fled the immediate area and was later captured. Inside the home, authorities found Navarrete de Gonzales and Axel dead. Other relatives who had been inside survived.
Those events formed the foundation of the eventual first-degree murder case, but the prosecution did not move directly from arrest to trial. In 2024, pretrial proceedings included a dispute over forensic records and expert-witness disclosures. A judge ordered prosecutors to turn over material that had not been provided on schedule. The state later dismissed the murder charges while saying it intended to bring them again after additional preparation.
Roman did not leave custody during the interruption in the state case. He also faced a federal firearm prosecution and pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing a gun. The state murder case eventually resumed, extending the time before Navarrete de Gonzales’ relatives and Axel’s friends would see a jury consider the evidence. By April 2026, the prosecution was ready to present its allegations to a Santa Fe County jury.
At trial, prosecutors framed the killings as the endpoint of an escalating series of deliberate choices. They pointed to the breakup, Navarrete de Gonzales’ protective-order petition, Roman’s repeated messages, the shotgun and the drive from Albuquerque. They also presented evidence about what they said happened once Roman reached the house. Navarrete de Gonzales was killed in her bedroom, and Axel was also shot inside the residence. Prosecutors argued that Roman entered the home after firing toward it and deliberately killed both victims.
The defense did not deny that Roman fired the weapon. Instead, his attorneys argued that the state’s evidence did not establish deliberate intent in the way prosecutors claimed. They said Roman had been heavily intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine and disputed portions of the state’s reconstruction. At the opening of trial, the defense challenged the assertion that evidence showed Roman moving through the residence exactly as prosecutors described and argued that shots had been fired through windows.
The jurors rejected those arguments as a basis for avoiding first-degree murder convictions. On April 22, they found Roman guilty of both willful and deliberate murder counts and two related felonies. The verdicts resolved the factual dispute placed before the jury and shifted the case toward punishment. By then, more than two years had passed since students at Capital High School first gathered to remember Axel.
At sentencing, Roman’s attorney asked that the two life sentences be served concurrently rather than consecutively and again pointed to his intoxication. Lidyard declined. The judge said Roman’s ability to drive roughly 60 miles from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, arrive at Navarrete de Gonzales’ residence while armed and carry out a series of actions after earlier threats was inconsistent with the suggestion that intoxication eliminated deliberate decision-making. Lidyard described the evidence of deliberate murder as especially strong.
The judge imposed one life sentence for each murder and ordered the terms to run one after the other. Roman also received 10½ years for shooting at an occupied building and aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon. The structure of the sentence means the punishment for one death does not simply overlap with punishment for the other. Prosecutors described the result as the maximum sentence available in the state case.
The sentencing brought together two narratives that had unfolded on different tracks since 2023. One was a criminal proceeding measured through protective orders, police work, evidence disputes, charging decisions, a federal case, a state dismissal, a renewed prosecution, verdicts and prison terms. The other was the continuing absence experienced by relatives and by teenagers who once shared classrooms and school days with Axel. The criminal courts could determine responsibility and punishment, but those questions were separate from the losses that existed from the night of the killings.
Navarrete de Gonzales’ attempt to obtain protection became part of both narratives. For the prosecution, the protective order helped establish the deteriorated relationship and the fact that she wanted Roman to stay away. For relatives, it was part of the short period before the killings in which she had taken formal steps to end contact. The scheduled legal process concerning longer-term protection never reached its hearing because she and Axel were killed first.
Roman faces consecutive state sentences that make release during an ordinary lifetime highly unlikely, in addition to the consequences of his separate federal firearm case. For the Santa Fe prosecution, the April verdicts and August sentencing represent the most significant completed milestones after years of litigation. Further appellate or post-conviction proceedings may address legal questions, but the jury has resolved the criminal charges placed before it and the trial judge has imposed punishment for both deaths.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.