Investigators say a confrontation between neighbors over an alleged debt ended with a mother of seven dead and a murder charge filed.
PHOENIX, Ariz. — The argument that ended in Danielle Little’s death did not begin on the day she was shot. According to police and court records, it started weeks earlier with a minor collision, an alleged promise to pay $100 and tension between neighbors living in the same apartment complex.
Little, 35, was shot March 23 near 11th Avenue and Mountain View Road after what Phoenix police first described as a verbal argument with her neighbor, Daniel Rombach Jr., 21. She later died at a hospital, and Rombach was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The immediate importance of the case lies in how a small, unresolved dispute appears to have escalated over time, then erupted in seconds outside homes where family members and children were close enough to hear or watch part of what happened.
The older dispute, as described by relatives and court records, centered on a car incident from about a month before the shooting. Family members said Little accidentally backed into Rombach’s vehicle and agreed to pay him $100. Her sister later told local reporters there did not appear to be visible damage, but Little still wanted to settle the matter and avoid a police call. The family said she was low on money after rent and needed more time. That detail matters because it places the shooting inside a larger pattern of everyday strain in apartment living: parked cars, shared walkways, notes left behind, repeated encounters and debts too small for court but large enough to keep a quarrel alive.
By the morning of March 23, according to the probable cause affidavit, the old grievance returned in a new setting. The document says Little’s son broke a lawn ornament near an apartment close to Rombach’s unit. After hearing the child apologize, Rombach allegedly stepped outside and asked again about the $100. Little’s husband told investigators he was with her during the confrontation and saw Rombach pull a handgun from his waistband. He said he moved back because the children were behind him. The affidavit says Little taunted Rombach, saying he was not going to shoot her in front of her kids. Prosecutors allege he then fired one round at close range and walked back to his apartment.
The police response was fast. Officers were called at about 8:05 a.m. and found Little with a gunshot wound. Phoenix Fire took her to a hospital, where she later died. Rombach was detained at the complex without incident. The affidavit cited by local media says he later told officers he did not intend to shoot Little and forgot the gun did not have a safety device, and investigators wrote that he expressed remorse. Those remarks now sit beside more damaging witness statements from the husband and details about the gun being displayed during the argument. What remains unknown publicly is whether any surveillance video, forensic testing or additional witness testimony will change the early account laid out in court papers.
For neighbors and relatives, the setting itself has become part of the story. This was not a roadside shooting between strangers or a late-night encounter in a distant parking lot. It happened where both households lived, in the middle of the morning, with children nearby and ordinary apartment life going on around them. Family members said Little left behind seven children, including a premature infant still in neonatal intensive care. Her sister said the family wanted justice and struggled to grasp how a dispute over money and a prior note about payment had ended in a fatal shot. Her husband said she would be forever loved and remembered.
The legal process moved quickly after the arrest. Local reporting said Rombach was being held on a $1 million bond and had a court date set for March 30. Phoenix police said the investigation was ongoing, and prosecutors will likely build the case around witness statements, the firearm, the background debt dispute and Rombach’s own statements after the shooting. The coming hearings are expected to test whether the state’s account of a simmering neighbor conflict turned deadly can withstand the next stage of court review.
Rombach’s the case stands as both a murder prosecution and a stark record of how a month-old argument in one apartment complex ended with a mother dead and a neighbor in jail.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.