This story first appeared in a Colorado Community Media newspaper. Support CCM’s neighborhood news. The Colorado Sun is an owner of CCM.

The suspect in a hit-and-run crash Sunday that left a Weld County sheriff’s deputy dead has been arrested.

The suspect, Octavio Gonzalez-Garcia, was taken into custody Monday in Fort Collins, according to Weld County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Joe Moylan.

Weld County sheriff’s Deputy Alexis Hein-Nutz, 24, died in the hit-and-run crash. She was a week away from her 25th birthday.

Deputy Alexis Hein-Nutz. (Handout)

Hein-Nutz joined the sheriff’s office almost four years ago and was assigned to the jail, where she was a detentions deputy.

Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams said Hein-Nutz was riding her motorcycle on her way to work when the crash happened at AA Street and WCR 37, just north of Greeley.

“Gonzalez-Garcia made no attempt to provide Alexis aid despite her obvious injuries,” Reams said in a statement. “Instead, he ran away like a coward and hid in a nearby cornfield.”

The Colorado State Patrol is assisting the sheriff’s office with an investigation into the crash. Authorities say false immigration documents and a fake Social Security card were found at the crash scene.

Hein-Nutz was born in Bismarck, N.D. Reams said it was the deputy’s dream to be a law enforcement officer.

“After many years of dreaming of being in law enforcement, I can finally say I am officially following my dreams,” Hein-Nutz wrote in a Facebook post after she graduated from the Weld County jail academy. “This is only the first stepping stone to a brighter future. Here is to a better life and doing what I was meant to do.”

Colorado Community Media is a collection of 24 hyperlocal weekly newspapers that reach 350,000 residents. Some of its newspapers have been around for more than 100 years. In 2021, Colorado Community Media was bought by the Colorado...