Morehead Police: Siblings shot Sunday, teen boy killed

Police say suspect was found hiding in bushes just blocks from department

MOREHEAD, Ky. (ABC 36 NEWS NOW) — A 15-year-old boy is dead and his sister is recovering after a shooting in Morehead early Sunday morning, in what police are calling a chaotic situation just blocks from their department headquarters.

Officers with the Morehead Police Department say they heard gunfire around 2:30 a.m. Sunday while on patrol near West Sun Street.

“No we never received a 911 call from the residents or anyone in the neighborhood. It was just officers in the area being patrolmen, they heard what they thought could be gunshots,” said Morehead Police Chief Derrick Blevins.

“And then they located a male subject running in that neighborhood and that’s kind of how it all kicked off they were able to track him down he was actually hiding in some bushes,” said Chief Blevins.

The man police say they found hiding is now charged in the case. Authorities identified him as 36-year-old Gildardo Martinez. He faces charges of murder, assault, and attempted rape. Officials tell ABC 36 Martinez is not from the area.

Investigators say Martinez is accused of shooting and killing 15-year-old Luis Nanez Lopez and injuring who police say is his sister. Police say the girl approached officers shortly after they found the suspect.

“She came walking up it was probably three or four houses down, from where the male subject was hiding in some shrubbery, she approached police officers there that’s when they had learned that she had been shot,” Blevins said.

Officers say they later found Lopez inside the nearby home on West Sun Street. The police department says officers had to manage multiple active scenes at once as the situation unfolded.

“It was a very chaotic scene and the officers they were really struggling trying to keep up with two different – basically we had two different scenes – you had the gentleman that was hiding in the bushes that was potentially armed. And then we found out later that we had the crime scene a few houses down a very stressful evening for our guys,” Blevins said.

The Rowan County coroner confirmed that Lopez would have been a sophomore this fall at Rowan County Senior High School.