Woman Sentenced In Fatal Edgewater Shooting

EDGEWATER, CO — A woman has been sentenced to life in prison for her role in the death of a man who was picking up food from an Edgewater strip mall. In July, a Jefferson County jury found Alicia Elena Valdez, 21, guilty of first-degree murder in the 2018 shooting death of 27-year-old Andrew Jenicek. Her sentence was handed down Friday.

Valdez was convicted under the felony murder law, which holds people responsible for murders that occur during other felonies, such as aggravated robbery.

Two men, Caleb Joseph Vigil and Devon Drizzt Howard, were also found guilty earlier this year in Jenicek's death. Both are serving life sentences.

Valdez, Vigil and Howard got a hold of a gun and planned to use it to rob people, prosecutors said.

Jenicek was shot in a parking lot around 8:30 p.m. last April while he came to pick up barbecue from a restaurant in a strip mall in the 2000 block of Sheridan Boulevard.

Vigil tried to rob Jenicek and shot him in the chest. Vigil, Howard and Valdez then escaped in her Mitsubishi, which ran over Jenicek's body as he lay in the parking lot. He died on the scene. The car was captured on surveillance video.

Vigil and Howard continued on a crime spree, firing shots at a woman to intimidate her from testifying in another case and then committing an armed robbery at a Lakewood cell phone store on April 6, robbing the clerk and customers at gun point, prosecutors said.

Howard and Vigil were tried and sentenced earlier this year.