Jesus Benavidez stayed in Denver after breaking up with the mother of his child rather than return home to Texas, because he wanted to be a father to the now 2-year-old girl.
The decision may have cost him his life. Last month, Benavidez, 26, was shot to death in his apartment near the University of Denver.
Luckily, his daughter, Thalia, wasn’t spending the night.
Benavidez moved into the Trivium Apartments about a year ago, and the little girl spent every weekend with him. He stayed in town, “because he wanted to be there for her,” said his father, Larry Benavidez.
Benavidez was a free spirit who threw himself into anything he did, his father said.
He studied to be a barber in Corpus Christi, Texas, and “he wanted to be a barber to the stars,” his father said.
He was outgoing, well-liked, and sociable, and there was never any sign that he was involved in drugs, or anything illegal, Larry Benavidez said.
Even if he was, and someone went to his home to rob him, what cause would they have to kill him, wondered his dad, a retired police officer who lives in Hebbronville, Texas, said.
Benavidez stayed close to his father, texting and calling him often. “I was talking to him on the phone, an hour before they killed him,” Larry Benavidez said.
“When me and his mom got divorced, I got custody. He was my baby. I changed his diapers, and I raised him, and buried him at the family cemetery,” he said. “I was the one who shoveled dirt on him in the hole. He just shouldn’t be gone.”
He is concerned that the murder investigation has fallen through the cracks. Denver police investigators haven’t been returning his phone calls for information, he said.
“I’m not calling over there about a murder I’m curious about, it was my son,” Larry Benavidez said. “Somebody killed him.”
Denver police spokesman Doug Schepman said the homicide investigation is still active, and police are waiting for results of some forensic testing.
Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at 720-913-7867, Schepman said.
