Suspected shooter arrested for killing 23-year-old mom in Pasco home
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- Police arrested Jonathon Villegas in Oregon on suspicion of murdering Lupita Ponce-Penaloza.
- Court documents and shell casings suggest involvement of a second unidentified shooter.
- Villegas faces extradition to Washington and a $2 million murder and weapons warrant.
Police arrested a suspected killer in Oregon after he allegedly helped gun down a 23-year-old mother at a Pasco home last week.
Investigators believe Jonathon Villegas, 30, is one of two suspected shooters who killed Lupita Ponce-Penaloza inside a detached garage turned apartment on Marie Street, court documents said.
Regional, state and federal agencies helped find Villegas in Pendleton, Ore. on Friday into Saturday. He was arrested on a $2 million warrant for second-degree murder and illegally possessing a firearm.
He was booked into the Umatilla County jail pending extradition to Franklin County in Washington.
“The arrest does not signal the end of the investigation,” Pasco police said in a Facebook post about the arrest. “Pasco detectives continue to investigate the details of this case.”
Police were called to the home on the 1800 block of Marie Street about 2:20 a.m. July 23 after reports that a woman had been shot. When officers arrived, they found Ponce-Penaloza was wounded shot multiple times. She died at the apartment.
Court documents show a friend told investigators that Ponce-Penaloza, who has a young son, went to a friend’s Marie Street home to meet Villegas, who she referred to as “Trucha,” court documents said.
“In messages to the friend, Lupita questioned whether Trucha had tried to set her up,” Detective Julie Lee wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. “There was also a text message sent from Lupita telling this friend that the friend may need her to call ‘911 if s--t goes down.’”
Shortly before the shooting, she sent a message saying one of the men who lived at the home was mad.
The two roommates who live at the Marie Street home gave different versions of what they saw. One said Ponce-Penaloza and Villegas came to the home together.
Villegas pulled a .45 caliber handgun from underneath a coffee table before shooting Ponce-Penaloza. He then opened the door for a second man, who also shot her.
The other witness only saw one person shooting.
Police have not released any details about the second suspect, but Washington State Patrol crime lab investigators have confirmed two different calibers for the shell casings found at the apartment.
Court documents said they recovered .40 and .45 caliber rounds in the home.
Villegas has a lengthy criminal history in Franklin County, dating back to 2009. He was convicted of second-degree assault in 2012 and second-degree robbery in 2018. Both convictions prohibited him from owning a gun.
This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 1:00 PM.