How a hit-and-run in a Raleigh parking lot led to murder charges
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- A confrontation over a parking-lot hit-and-run led to Francisco Camacho-Lopez’s death.
- Kennedy Basaves Gonzalez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and faces about 15 years.
- Jorge Arroyo-Zabaleta was sentenced to at least eight years and eight months in prison.
Nearly three years after a confrontation over a hit-and-run led to a Raleigh man’s death, both of the people charged in his murder have been sentenced.
Francisco Camacho-Lopez, 30, was fatally shot about 4:15 a.m. Aug. 6, 2023, at a Peyton Street apartment complex, The News & Observer previously reported. Jorge Arroyo-Zabaleta and Kennedy Basaves Gonzalez were arrested two days later on charges of murder in his death.
Arroyo-Zabaleta, 28, was sentenced to at least eight years and eight months in prison Monday; with credit for time served, he could serve a little under six years minimum.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in February and was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years and a maximum of 22 years and eight months in prison, court records show. With time served, that sentence could be reduced to about 15 years and six months.
But only one of the men ever fired a gun, according to court documents and officials.
‘My brother did not deserve to die like this’
Camacho-Lopez’s sister, who didn’t provide her name, sobbed Monday as she read her victim impact statement in court.
“I just wanted to say that my brother did not deserve to die like this,” she said through an interpreter.
The shooting followed an alleged hit-and-run in the parking lot of a nightclub, according to prosecutors and court documents. Arroyo-Zabaleta, Gonzalez and another man were at the club when they realized Gonzalez’s hatchback had been hit by a white work van, search warrants in the case state.
“The work van fled the scene without notifying them of the car crash,” warrants say. “The group ... were able to ascertain a potential responsible party for the car crash. They left the club and drove straight to the crime scene, where [they] confronted the victim.”
Cameras at the apartment complex captured the confrontation, and the men could be heard arguing in Spanish before Gonzalez shot Camacho-Lopez multiple times with a handgun, according to the search warrants.
In an interview with police after his arrest, Arroyo-Zabaleta “admitted to taking a handgun belonging to the victim after the victim had been shot and was down on the ground,” search warrants state. He left the handgun at a friend’s house, but court documents don’t indicate police ever found the weapon.
Arroyo-Zabaleta later admitted to his girlfriend and at least one other person that he’d participated in Camacho-Lopez’s killing, according to search warrants. He was arrested the evening of the shooting, and Gonzalez turned himself in two days later, court records indicate.
Legal complexities
Arroyo-Zabaleta’s attorney, James Bradford Polk, said the case was one of the most complicated he’d seen legally.
“Everyone agrees on the facts of the murder,” Polk said, but the legal ramifications were murkier.
Arroyo-Zabaleta was only charged with murder because he disposed of Camacho-Lopez’s handgun after the incident, according to Polk and court documents. And filings in Gonzalez’s case indicate he would have argued self-defense, given Camacho-Lopez was reportedly also armed.
But Arroyo-Zabaleta received a sentence “at the very top of the aggravated range,” as Judge Jennifer Bedford described it, because he’d acquired habitual felon status. He’d pleaded guilty to the sexual battery and kidnapping of a 15-year-old when he was 19, according to the sex offender registry. As part of his sentence, he was required to register as a sex offender in North Carolina and complete three years of probation.
Arroyo-Zabaleta, though, didn’t understand the requirements of the registry, Polk said, and failed to update his address on at least two occasions, leading to additional charges. And because he’d briefly had Camacho-Lopez’s gun after the homicide, he was also charged after the murder with possession of a firearm by a felon.
Arroyo-Zabaleta pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact of murder and possession of a firearm by a felon Friday, court records show. That meant he’d been convicted of three felonies, which automatically made him eligible for habitual felon status under North Carolina law.
After someone’s been deemed a habitual felon, they qualify for “aggravated,” or longer, sentences. With Arroyo-Zabaleta’s record, a Class C felony like accessory after the fact of second-degree murder would have a presumptive range of 67 to 83 months in prison; however, he agreed to two aggravating factors, which, with his habitual felon status, allowed for a longer sentence.
After reading Arroyo-Zabaleta’s sentence into the record, Bedford finished Monday’s hearing by returning to the life lost in the process. As she glanced at photos of Camacho-Lopez provided by his family, Bedford told his sister she’d be returning them, “with the court’s deepest condolences.”
This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "How a hit-and-run in a Raleigh parking lot led to murder charges."
