Update: 4 unsolved Tri-City killings since August. Arrests made in fatal shooting last week

Update: A suspect and an accomplice were arrested Monday night in connection with a gang-related shootout that killed 25-year-old Ezekiel Sanchez.

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Last week’s death of a man left at a Kennewick emergency room with a fatal gunshot wound is the fifth unsolved homicide in the Tri-Cities since August.

And there was nearly a sixth case after a Kennewick man was reportedly fatally stabbed while mowing his lawn Friday evening.

But then on Monday morning an 18-year-old suspect and his mother came to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, and the teen was jailed on suspicion of murder.

But no arrests have been made yet in five other homicide cases — 3 in Kennewick, 1 in Pasco and 1 in rural Benton County. Three of the deaths happened within 10 days of each other.

The open investigations include:

▪ Ezekiel Sanchez, 25, was dropped off at the freestanding Kadlec Regional Medical Center ER on 19th Avenue in Kennewick on Wednesday evening. He suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead there, Kennewick police said.

Investigators believe he was shot at the intersection of First Avenue and Dayton Street near Kennewick High School sometime before 5 p.m. Several people, including the driver who reportedly dropped him off, were questioned but no one was arrested.

Sanchez had a history of gang involvement but police have not said if his death was possibly gang-related.

▪Jose A. Garcia Lopez, 26, was found dead Aug. 5, 2021, in an alley on the 1900 block of West Hopkins Street in Pasco. People reported hearing gunshots in the residential neighborhood shortly after 11 p.m. No one has been arrested. The death followed a series of reports of gunfire in that area in previous weeks.

▪Hector Cortez-Ballardo, 33, was found dead by a mail carrier on Sept. 14 while the carrier was doing her deliveries east of Highway 395/Interstate 82. Cortez-Ballardo was a laborer from Mexico. Benton County investigators haven’t released any new information, including how he died, and no arrests have been made.

▪Jaden Quintero, 23, was shot Sept. 17 in front of a home on the 200 block of South Washington Street in Kennewick. Little additional information has been released since he was found dead and no one has been arrested. Six years earlier, he and his brother Nathan Quintero were arrested in the killing George Garcia Thacker, 18, in Pasco. Jaden admitted rendering criminal assistance and spent nearly two years in jail. His older brother, who had a long history of gang violence, and is serving a 16-year prison term.

▪Alyssa Moore, 18, was found shot to death Sept. 22 at the intersection of Seventh Place and South Kent Street in Kennewick. People calling 911 reported hearing up to four gunshots in the area before police found her. The Grandview High grad had family in Kennewick and dreamed of a music career, her mother told the Herald.

This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 5:49 PM.