Police arrested a man on Wednesday in connection with the killing of a 4-year-old girl in a shooting on an interstate that investigators believe was motivated by road rage.
Tony Torrez, 32, is charged with various counts and was being held in lieu of $650,000 cash-only bail Wednesday, Albuquerque Police said. He was picked up hours earlier as a "person of interest" and was later arrested and charged.
Illiana "Lilly" Garcia was shot in the head and died after a gunman opened fire on the truck she was riding in on Interstate 40 at around 3 p.m. (5 p.m. ET) on Tuesday, police said.
Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden Jr. said police received an anonymous call from someone who said they knew who shot Lilly, and that helped lead to the arrest.
Lilly’s father picked up the child and her 7-year-old brother from school Tuesday and got on Interstate 40 westbound, and some type of road-rage incident occurred, Eden said. The children were in the back seat.
"As the vehicles proceeded westbound on Interstate 40, shots were fired into the truck," Eden said. "The father, recognizing that he did in fact hear shots, saw that his daughter was bleeding, pulled to the edge of the road and tried to administer first aid."
Two bystanders who stopped to help were nurses who helped provide aid to the child, Eden said. The child was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital where she died. No one else was hurt in the shooting.
More than a dozen calls came into police after the killing.
A reward of more than $26,000 was offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gunman.
Earlier Wednesday, FBI Special Agent in Charge Carol Lee of the Albuquerque field office said the federal agency has launched its own investigation into the shooting, and pledged to help local police in any way possible.
