A 16-year-old Colorado boy will be tried as an adult after he murdered his 15-year-old girlfriend for trying to break up with him. Jovanni Sirio-Cardona broke into the home of 15-year-old Lily Silva-Lopez and shot her seven times, killing her. Police were called to the property in Greeley at around 3:45 p.m. on June 16.
Neighbor Delores Windmeier, who spoke to Denver 7, said she and her husband heard the gunshots and didn’t know what was happening. “We had heard all the gunshots and we ran to the back of our house, which is where our room is to hide and my husband came out he’s like, I don’t know what’s going on,” she “recalled. Just huge popping noise. You know, how you kind of hear the fireworks and they kind of echo? These didn’t, they just popped, they were loud. There were so many at once, I don’t know if you would stop to count, but there was just so many.”
Lily Silva-Lopez’s 13-year-old brother told Windmeier that his sister’s ex-boyfriend, Jovanni Sirio-Cardona, had broken into their house and shot his sister, according to a police report. Windmeier immediately called police, who arrived to find Silva-Lopez already dead.
The victim’s brother told police he was watching “South Park” when he heard a gunshot in the air and then glass shattering. Lily yelled for her brother to run and he locked himself in a room and tried to dial 911. However, he couldn’t get the call to connect. Lily was shot in the hallway outside of her room seven times.
According to Lily Silva-Lopez’s mother, her daughter and Sirio-Cardona dated for about six months. About a month before Lily’s murder, she tried ending the relationship, at which point he put the barrel of a gun in her mouth and told her “she wasn’t going to break up with him and she needed to tell him she loved him.” Lily later told her cousin what happened, and the cousin told Lily’s mom. A domestic violence complaint was filed six days before the shooting.
The boy said he begged Sirio-Cardona not to shoot him and the older boy said he wouldn’t but made him hand over his phone. He also asked the 13-year-old to help him move Lily’s body “as he struggled to deal with how badly she had been hurt.” He then pulled Lily’s body back to her room and left the property with her brother’s phone.
Jovanni Sirio-Cardona was charged with murder in the first degree, felony murder, first-degree burglary, aggravated burglary, and possession of a handgun by a juvenile, the Nineteenth Judicial District Attorney’s Office announced on Tuesday.
His bond has been set at $2 million. He will have a status hearing on August 3.
