Romero Faces Aggravated Murder Charge After Admitting, “I Shot Him”

A man lost his life in a Tamuning parking lot late Tuesday night after he was shot multiple times. The man who reportedly admitted to murdering him, now sits in jail, facing an aggravated murder charge.

Guam Police Department officers observed surveillance footage showing Gregory Arthur Romero, 27, arriving at the Guam Premier Outlets parking lot near the former Forever 21 building shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a declaration by the prosecutor who brought the murder charge against Mr. Romero. He then was seen walking around “as if he is searching for someone, until he locates victim and witness in the blue truck.”

The victim, according to the declaration, was Keo Resse Cruz Taianao, found “unconscious and unresponsive” and lying face up in a stream of blood by officers, and pronounced dead at Guam Memorial Hospital at 10:43 p.m. That was about 43 minutes after an on-duty GPD officer responded to an anonymous phone call reporting that the caller heard “about four gunshots” at the location. The declaration did not name the witness, however, viral videos of the Tuesday night scene show a woman appearing to exit a blue truck from which a man is seen pulling a lifeless body from the driver’s seat.

According to the prosecutor’s declaration, Mr. Romero is accused of shooting and killing Mr. Taianao, who sustained 10 gunshot wounds. The declaration does not say where Mr. Romero was situated, when he allegedly shot the victim, nor does it confirm that the victim was shot while sitting in the driver’s seat of the blue truck described by the prosecutor and seen in the viral videos. The prosecutor, however, wrote that when the responding officer arrived, Mr. Romero was administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the victim. He then stopped CPR, placed his hands in the air, walked toward the responding officer and the officer’s partner and said, “It was me sir, I was the one who shot him,” according to the prosecutor.

“Romero was asked what happened and he pointed to a black handgun in close proximity to the victim’s body and stated that ‘It is mine sir, I shot him,'” the prosecutor wrote.

When police handcuffed Mr. Romero, the prosecutor said the responding officer reported that a woman named Kaleianani Romero screamed, “Oh my God, why did you have to shoot him!”