Two of the people shot to death near the Broadway light rail station last week were married and leave behind two children who are now orphans, according to the mother of one of the victims.
Husband and wife Nicole Boston, 28, and Jerome Coronado, 39, were living on the streets when a passerby spotted their bodies the afternoon of Aug. 13. A third man, 45-year-old Christopher Zamudio, was also killed. No suspects are in custody.
“They were great parents,” Boston’s mother Connie Jones said. “Like a lot of us, they had some hard times, so certainly that’s not how they wanted to end up or we wanted to end up. But it’s all beyond that. It’s a bigger issue.
“Their lives were cut short. There’s no ending. It’s just left hanging there.”
Jones attended a vigil for Boston, Coronado and Zamudio on Friday night. She said her daughter had another child from a previous marriage. That child’s father was killed in 2008.
According to a GoFundMe set up by the family, the children are being taken care of by their grandmother and great-grandmother.
“The world is a different place without my daughter especially, and I want everyone to know that she was loved, she had a home,” Jones said.
Jones said Boston worked everyday before she was homeless, and took care of everyone who crossed her path.
“She was so brilliant, she was amazing,” Jones said. “She was gung-ho, she took everything by force.”
She said it doesn’t matter that her daughter was living on the streets when she was killed. Her life doesn’t mean anything less.
“For someone to come and so carelessly take that upon themselves, to do that without any regard that they were people … it also makes me kind of angry because it’s like … people keep asking me ‘what was she doing out here?’ Jones said. “Almost like trying to blame the victim and to me, we’re all victims.”
The Denver Police Department is offering a $2,000 reward for information that could help solve the murders of Boston, Coronado and Zamudio. Anyone who may have seen something suspicious in the area is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP.
“I need to stand up for my daughter, I need to stand up for who she was,” Jones said. “That helps me.”
