26-03-2025
Nashville cops use phone, Instagram to make arrest in execution-style Antioch park killing
After video surveillance gave Nashville Police a suspect description, cellphone data and Instagram evidence led to the arrest of a 21-year-old man in connection with the execution-style killing of another person in a city park last year.
Miguel Cruz-Lopez, 21, was booked into the Downtown Detention Center early Wednesday on charges of especially aggravated robbery and criminal homicide.
Two Antioch residents were out for a walk at about 8 a.m. at William Pitts Park April 28 when they stumbled upon 36-year-old Francisco Almazan-Rojas dead of multiple gunshot wounds.
Almazan-Rojas had been shot seven times, five of which were at close range, according to an arrest affidavit for Cruz-Lopez. The victim "was in a kneeling position on the ground" at the time of the shooting, according to the Medical Examiner's autopsy report.
Investigtors collected several 9mm cartridge casings from the scene and several bullets from the victim's body. They all came from the same pistol, the affidavit said.
Three days after Almazan-Rojas' body was found, his pickup truck, with his cellphone inside, was found abandoned on Luton Street in East Nashville. Police used video footage from East Nashville businesses to identify Cruz-Lopez.
"After identifying, obtaining and analyzing data from his Instagram account, I discovered he possessed two different 9mm caliber firearms prior to and after the victim's murder," a detective wrote in the arrest affidavit.
Cellphone records for Cruz-Lopez placed him at the park at the same time as the victim's phone. He also traveled the same path as the victim's cellphone from the park to where the truck was abandoned, according to the affidavit.
Cruz-Lopez is being held at the jail without bond on the criminal homicide charge.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Cell phone, Instagram help Nashville cops make arrest in park killing
