By Sarah Campbell
and Scott Jenkins
scampbell@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — Authorities were looking for clues Thursday evening in the murder of a 29-year-old man shot multiple times and left at the end of a road in western Rowan County early Thursday.
Those who knew Guillermo Montes-Gonzalez also want answers. His wife, the mother of his three young children, described Montes-Gonzalez as a good father. His employer said he was a dependable worker who finished a shift just hours before his violent death.
Chief Deputy David Ramsey of the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office said Montes-Gonzalez was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds just after 1 a.m. in a cul-de-sac at the end of Barley Run near Goodnight Road.
Residents there told investigators they saw a silver Cadillac leave the scene. Ramsey said investigators believe the Cadillac is a newer model CTS.
Ramsey said Montes-Gonzalez was apparently killed there and his body left in the road.
“Gunshots were heard at the cul-de-sac,” he said.
A woman who lives on Barley Run said her brother was outside smoking when he heard the gunshots and a yell, but the man didn’t see what happened. She said when her brother went to investigate and found Montes-Gonzalez on the ground, he called 911 and began performing CPR.
The woman didn’t want to give her name. Neither did other Barley Run residents interviewed by the Post on Thursday because the killer hadn’t been caught, they said.
Ramsey said Montes-Gonzalez was last seen alive about midnight.
“We got the call regarding the shooting about 1 a.m.,” he said. “That’s a window of about an hour that we are trying to close and figure out what happened.”
Montes-Gonzalez had no known connection to the neighborhood where he was shot, Ramsey said. He lived several miles away from the scene.
Montes-Gonzalez had lived in Rowan County for at least 12 years. He was married with three children ages 3, 5 and 11. Friends gathered to at his home in eastern Salisbury with his wife and children Thursday afternoon.
“He was a good father, and a good husband,” his wife, who speaks Spanish, told the Post through an interpreter as she administered medication to the couple’s youngest child.
She did not want to say anything more because of the ongoing investigation. The Post is not naming Montes-Gonzalez’s wife and children because his murderer remains at large.
Montes-Gonzalez worked on and off for the past 10 years as a line cook at DJ’s Restaurant on West Innes Street, said owner Louie Mourouzidis. He worked Wednesday, leaving at 8 p.m., and was scheduled to work Thursday.
Mourouzidis said another employee called him Thursday morning with the news about Montes-Gonzalez’s death.
“We’re all shocked by it,” he said. “We still cannot believe that it happened.”
Mourouzidis called Montes-Gonzalez “a good employee, very dependable. Other than that, I don’t know anything about his personal life.”
Barley Run residents said people sometimes fire guns in the area, so when they heard three or four gunshots around 1 a.m. Thursday, a few just went back to sleep.
The shooting death is the first violent crime neighbors say they remember in about 10 years, and some said they don’t feel safe in the area now. A blood stain was still visible on the asphalt of the cul-de-sac Thursday afternoon.
“Now, go on inside. Don’t play outside at all, you hear me?” a woman said as she dropped off children at a Barley Run home after school. “OK,” they called back.
Karissa Minn contributed to this article. Contact the Post newsroom at 704-797-4248.