A Southern California UPS employee was charged with special circumstance murder after prosecutors said he tracked down his childhood friend on a delivery route in Irvine and shot him 14 times as the driver sat buckled into his truck.
The case drew wide attention in Orange County because authorities said the shooting was not a robbery or a random workplace attack, but a targeted ambush carried out in the middle of a workday by a co-worker and longtime friend. Rhean Jalipa Fontanoza, 46, was charged in the killing of 50-year-old Expedito Cuesta De Leon, and investigators said they were still trying to determine what set the attack in motion. Fontanoza was being held without bail.
According to prosecutors, the chain of events began around 12:30 p.m. on May 16, 2024, when Fontanoza approached another UPS driver and asked whether the route belonged to De Leon. After learning De Leon was working a different route that day, prosecutors said, Fontanoza went to the UPS substation in Aliso Viejo, used a computer that displayed drivers’ routes and took a photo of the screen with his phone. Fontanoza had been on disability leave and was scheduled to return to work on June 1. Just before 3 p.m., prosecutors said, he located De Leon in Irvine while driving a newer vehicle that would not be recognized. De Leon had stepped out to make a delivery, returned to his truck and buckled his seat belt when the shots were fired. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said De Leon was “just going about his day” when his longtime friend allegedly stalked him and attacked.
Police said the shooting happened at Chrysler and Fleming in an Irvine industrial area where delivery trucks and other work vehicles routinely move through the afternoon. Officers found De Leon slumped over in the driver’s seat of the UPS truck, still holding his scanner, according to prosecutors and local police accounts. Emergency responders pulled him from the vehicle and tried lifesaving measures, but he died at the scene. Witnesses told investigators they recognized the driver and knew the area as a place where he regularly stopped during his route. Officials said the evidence quickly pointed away from robbery. Police described the killing as targeted, and prosecutors later said the victim and suspect were childhood friends and co-workers. Surveillance footage cited by investigators showed a silver Honda Ridgeline pulling up next to the delivery truck and leaving after the gunfire. Prosecutors said 14 shots were fired in 19 seconds and 10 rounds struck De Leon.
The search for the suspect stretched into the evening and ended miles from the shooting scene. Police tracked the pickup to the area of Santiago Canyon Road and State Route 261 in Orange later that afternoon, according to local reports and prosecutors. Fontanoza refused commands to get out, authorities said, and officers used chemical agents and a police canine before taking him into custody after a brief struggle. The arrest gave investigators access to the vehicle they believed had been used in the shooting, along with digital evidence tied to the victim’s route. Prosecutors said the route photo taken at the UPS substation was part of the alleged planning. Public officials have not said whether the men had argued recently or whether there had been threats before the attack. That has left one of the most basic questions in the case unresolved: why a longtime friend would allegedly hunt down another worker in the middle of a normal delivery day.
For co-workers, relatives and neighbors, the details made the killing even harder to absorb. De Leon was described by family and friends as a father of two, a military veteran and a dependable worker who was well known on his route. Friends who gathered near the site the next morning remembered him as a hard worker, a devoted family man and an avid mountain biker. The setting deepened the shock. The truck was parked in a business district that witnesses said felt routine and safe, not like the scene of a public ambush. UPS said its “hearts are heavy” over the loss of one of its drivers and called the circumstances highly unusual. The company said the killing did not reflect the culture or camaraderie of its workforce and that it was providing support and counseling to employees affected by the shooting. The company also said it was helping authorities understand what happened.
The criminal case moved quickly in its first days. Fontanoza was charged May 20 with murder, along with special circumstance allegations of shooting from a vehicle and murder by lying in wait, plus a sentencing enhancement for personally discharging a gun causing death. Prosecutors said those allegations make him eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office identified the case as 24CF1302 and said Senior Deputy District Attorney Lexie Elliott of the Homicide Unit would prosecute it. Local reports said Fontanoza was arraigned soon after charges were filed, and prosecutors said he was being held without bail. Even with the formal charges in place, the case still turned on evidence that had yet to be fully tested in public, including route records, surveillance video, ballistics work and whatever investigators could establish about motive. No public account reviewed for this update detailed a later plea, trial verdict or sentencing outcome.
At the edge of the taped-off scene, grief came in ordinary language. Ramon Amoy, a friend mourning near the truck the morning after the shooting, said he was heartbroken and struggling to believe what had happened. His reaction matched the mood around the case, which mixed disbelief with the blunt facts laid out by police and prosecutors. De Leon was doing his route in broad daylight. The man accused of killing him worked for the same company and, authorities said, had known him for years. Officials have been clear about the sequence they believe they can prove, from the route inquiry to the substation computer to the gunfire at the truck window. They have been far less clear about motive, and that gap has kept the case from settling into a simple workplace violence narrative. What remains is a prosecution built around an alleged plan, a brief burst of violence on a familiar route and a family still defined in public accounts by sudden loss.
As of this update, the case remained centered on the same unanswered issue that surfaced when charges were filed in May 2024: what drove the alleged ambush. Publicly available reports reviewed for this story did not show a final court outcome, leaving the next major milestone in Orange County court unclear.
Author note: Last updated March 8, 2026.