A Clovis grand jury on Friday afternoon indicted a woman who told police she shot her ex after reporting a burglary in progress on Aug. 4.
Alexandra Romero, 28, is charged with voluntary manslaughter, said District Attorney Quentin Ray.
Police found Javier Jimenez dead in Romero’s home in the 700 block of Dawn Loop.
Law officers decided to take the case to grand jurors after more than two months of investigating Jimenez’s death.
Court records show Jimenez, 39, had been accused of trespassing on the property multiple times, most recently in May 2022. Police said in August that Romero had recently taken steps to secure a restraining order against Jimenez, but details were not provided.
Police said they found Jimenez’s body in a pool of coagulated blood with no pulse after responding to a 911 call in which Romero had reported a burglary in progress.
Jimenez was shot “near his mid right back,” court records show.
Ray said grand jurors were presented with the law in regard to “second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and self-defense, and that’s what they came back with.”
Ray said voluntary manslaughter is considered “unlawful killing with sufficient provocation … kind of the heat of the moment without due thought … the heat of passion.”
Maximum punishment if convicted would be six years in prison, Ray said. The prosecutor said Romero was not immediately taken into custody but a warrant would be issued for her arrest later Friday or possibly Monday.
Sandra Gallagher, Romero’s attorney, said “I have not seen all the evidence the state allegedly has, so I really couldn’t comment.”