Portland Suspect Claims Fatal Shooting of Girlfriend Was Accident as Charges Drop

PORTLAND, Ore. — After initially being charged with murder over the death of his girlfriend, Kimberly Venegas-Gonzalez, the charges against Leonel Macias-Silva of Portland have been reduced to manslaughter after he claimed the deadly shooting on August 10 was an accident.

Court documents indicate that a distraught man called 911 to report that his girlfriend was dead at 6:32 p.m. His mother also called 911, saying that her son’s girlfriend had accidentally shot herself and that her son had shot himself.

Arriving on the scene shortly thereafter, Portland Police Bureau officers found a man and woman outside the apartment, identified as Macias-Silva and his mother.

Macias’s mother said the victim had accidentally shot herself while playing with a gun, and Macias had told her that he did not know there was a bullet in the chamber. He expressed suicidal thoughts.

The suspect’s mother and her partner rushed back to the apartment after receiving her son’s call. They found the victim slumped over on the couch, clearly injured, and her son holding a gun. Despite attempts to calm him, Macias panicked when he heard police sirens and told his mother to leave, before threatening to shoot.

Special Emergency Reaction Team officers who gained access to the apartment found Kimberly Venegas-Gonzalez dead on the couch. A .45 caliber casing was found on the floor, and a spent bullet was located in the baseboard heater behind the couch, which indicated the trajectory of the shot.

An autopsy showed that a bullet exited through her upper back wound from a gunshot wound near the front center of her neck. According to the report, the muzzle of the gun was in contact with her skin when it was fired, and the bullet had severed her left carotid artery, causing her death.