2 Coronado High students killed over stolen purse

Two Coronado High School students found dead on the side of a road near Fountain earlier this year were forced into “execution position” and shot one at a time at close range — allegedly the result of a feud over a stolen purse.

The new allegation was made public Thursday in an arrest warrant for Gustavo Antonio Marquez, 19, one of five people charged with first-degree murder in the abduction and slayings of 16-year-old Natalie CanoPartida and 15-year-old Derek Greer.

Marquez detailed a gruesome version of events surrounding the March 11 killings during a voluntary confession that came after Colorado Springs police found him wandering in a street and “falling into traffic” a week after the shootings.

The bodies of Greer and Cano-Partida were found March 12 on Old Pueblo Road near Fountain.

According to the newly released court document, both bodies had “multiple gunshot wounds.”

In the affidavit, Marquez described how the teens were abducted and forced into a vehicle before their executions. He told authorities that Diego Chacon killed Cano-Partida with two gunshots and handed his gun to Marco Antonio Garcia Bravo, who killed Greer moments later.

Cano-Partida was told she would at least get to tell her family goodbye.

When she didn’t act quickly enough, her killers took the cell phone they had offered her and proceeded with their grim business — shooting her and Greer at close range

Five people ultimately were charged with first-degree murder in the deaths. One of them, Alexandra Romero, told investigators she thought Cano-Partida would be beaten, not killed.

“Things got out of hand,” Romero, 22, said she later was told by Marquez, 19, one of three people allegedly present during the slayings.

The account of how Greer and Cano-Partida died is largely based on a voluntary confession by Marquez, who identified Diego Carlos Chacon, 19, and Marco Antonio Garcia-Bravo, 20, as the triggermen.

Marquez said the deadly sequence began when Garcia-Bravo, picked up Greer and Cano-Partida on March 11 and drove them to the home of Joseph Rodriguez, in Colorado Springs. Rodriguez, investigators were told, had nursed suspicions that one of the teens had taken his girlfriend’s purse during a party.

When Greer and CanoPartida showed up that night, Rodriguez threatened them with a crowbar, Marquez claimed.

Afterward, the teens were placed back into a car and driven around Colorado Springs. Garcia-Bravo was the driver, and Marquez and Chacon were the passengers. Chacon, or Casper, had a pistol at the ready.

As they drove toward Old Pueblo Road, Cano-Partida “begged for her life.”

She was told to stop because it “would not change their mind,” Marquez said.