Father arrested in killing of son outside northeast home
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July 22, 2011 6:07 PM
EMILY WILKINS AND JAKOB RODGERS
THE GAZETTE
A turbulent relationship between a father and son ended in tragedy outside a Colorado Springs home, with the younger man shot dead last week and his father arrested on suspicion of murder.
Albert “Gary” Ybanez, 53, was booked Friday into the El Paso County jail on suspicion of second-degree murder in the death of his 35-year-old son, Franklin Ybanez, police said.
He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bond in connection with the July 12 shooting.
Ybanez said his son, who did not live with him, came to his home around 11:30 p.m. and looked as though he was “going to break through the door” to his house to “hurt somebody,” according to the arrest affidavit.
The father told detectives he’d been drinking that night — a half pint of vodka and two beers, the affidavit stated.
Ybanez and his son got into an argument in the garage over his son wanting to retrieve some computer hard drives he’d brought over to his father’s a few days earlier, police said.
Ybanez was afraid to let him in, he told police, and began yelling at him to leave. His son got a “crazed look” on his face and threw a punch. Ybanez’s nose was broken in the fistfight, police said.
As his son headed for the front door, Ybanez told detectives he grabbed a gun and fatally shot his son.
Franklin Ybanez’s body was found in the driveway of the home at 4907 Hackamore Drive South in northeast Colorado Springs after officers responded to reports of a shooting.
Albert Ybanez’s account of the shooting was contradicted by a neighbor, who told police he heard the sounds of a confrontation and watched the fight from his bedroom window.
According to the affidavit, the neighbor said he saw Albert Ybanez punch his son and the two tumbled to the ground exchanging blows.
Franklin Ybanez was walking down the driveway, putting on a motorcycle helmet when he was shot in the back, the neighbor told police.
The neighbor ran outside and was attempting to give CPR to Franklin Ybanez, when the father asked “if he was Captain America,” the affidavit said.
The neighbor said the father made no attempt to help his son, police said.
An autopsy found Franklin Ybanez died of a single gunshot wound in the lower back.
The 10 days it took police to sort out the different stories before Friday’s arrest angered Franklin Ybanez’s family, who said Albert Ybanez had callously spurned his son’s attempts to establish a relationship with him.
“Frankie and I really thought that Gary had grown up,” said Charlotte Neville, Franklin Ybanez’s mother. “We just didn’t lose faith that one day they would be able to have a father-son relationship.”
In a telephone interview from her home in Cordova, Tenn. earlier this week before Albert Ybanez’s arrest, Neville said the her son and his father had spent most of their lives apart, but had recently reconnected in Colorado Springs.
“My son was a beautiful man,” Neville said. “He took care of people, he always took care of other people. He cared about the world. He lived life. He loved life.
“The only thing Frankie every wanted was a father, that’s all.”
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