SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 21, 2026 (Gephardt Daily) — Court documents reveal the names of two men wanted after a fatal shooting early Monday in a Salt Lake City hotel.
Carlos Samuel Chee, 23, from Amarillo, Texas, and Chino Montana Aguilar, 21, from Clovis, New Mexico, were taken into custody about 205 miles west of Salt Lake City by the Sweetwater County (Wyoming) Sheriff’s Office. The two were apprehended in Wyoming a few hours after police in Salt Lake City responded to a 6:37 a.m. call regarding the shooting at SpringHill Suites, 625 S. 300 West.
“Officers entered the room and found a man dead inside,” Detective Michael Ruff, SLCPD, told reporters at the shooting scene.
Ruff issued an update later Monday, stating that Salt Lake City detectives identified a suspect vehicle early in the investigation and learned that it was possibly in western Wyoming.
“The car was located and stopped by deputies with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office,” the update said. “Two people in the car were taken into custody.”
The suspects were being held in the Sweetwater County jail pending the arrival of homicide detectives from Salt Lake to continue their investigation and begin the extradition process.
Image: Google Maps
Arrest warrant info
Court documents filed in Salt Lake City to facilitate the arrest and extradition of Aguilar and Chee say the call was made to dispatch by a woman who said her friend, Christian Lee, 32, had been shot.
Officers made contact with the woman, who told them Lee had rented two rooms at the hotel and that she and Lee had been staying there. She also said that Carlos Chee, whom she had met on a dating app, agreed to come to the hotel to sell her some marijuana, the documents state.
The woman said when Chee arrived, he had another man with him. She told officers that Chee “was acting very paranoid, and had not slept in several days,” and that he let her see he had a gun.
She said that while she and Chee were hanging out in the room she was using, Chee was on the phone with his “cousin Grumpy,” and provided the room number, 108, in which Lee was staying.
The woman said that later, Lee and “Grumpy” knocked on her door. Lee reportedly wanted the woman and Chee to leave. A hotel hallway surveillance recording shows that, at the same time, a man in a gray flannel shirt or jacket walked past.
“The male in the flannel, now identified to be Chino Aguilar, is then seen turning around and running into room 108 while reaching into his left jacket pocket,” court documents say. “The male and Carlos are then seen fleeing out of the room.”
The woman told investigators she had fled into the bathroom when the altercation started, and she heard but did not witness the shooting. After the scene quieted down, she left the bathroom and saw that Lee had been shot in the head. That’s when she called dispatch, according to the court documents.
Reported confession
Investigators learned that Chino Aguilar had called his parents shortly after the shooting “and confessed that he had just shot a man in Salt Lake City over a drug deal,” court documents say.
“Chino allegedly told his parents the man tried to grab his gun, and he subsequently shot the male.”
Investigators learned that Aguilar was in a vehicle with Chee, and Chee’s vehicle was a Gold 2013 Toyota Camry with a specific Texas plate.
A plate reader confirmed the vehicle was outside of Rock Springs, and law enforcement was notified to make the arrest.
The Sweetwater County Jail and Utah arrest documents both say that Chee and Aguilar are being held for alleged murder, a first-degree felony.
The SLCPD has asked anyone with additional information on the case to contact investigators at 801-799-3000 and reference case 26-86856.
Gephardt Daily will have more information on this case as it develops.
SpringHill Suites. Image: Google Streets
