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.
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.”