Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Police say they’ve solved 6-year-old murder case

Man already in prison for another crime

Tucson police say they have solved a 6-year-old murder with the indictment of a man who was already serving time in prison for an unrelated crime.

Tiaron G. Ross, 29, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting death in March 2003of Delavan L. Holmes, 32.

Tucson police found Holmes wounded when they responded to reports of a shooting in the 400 block of East Waverly Street. Holmes died later in a hospital.

Gang detectives arrested someone other than Ross within a month of Holmes’ murder. Charges were withdrawn later that year.

Police could not provide specifics on why the charges were withdrawn in the earlier arrest, but Sgt. Fabian Pacheco said it was clear the person arrested was not responsible for Holmes’ death.

“Results of DNA as well as ballistics tests were received in early December, which clearly implicated 29-year-old Tiaron G. Ross as the sole gunman in the murder of Mr. Holmes,” Pacheco said in a news release Friday.

Ross was sent to prison in December 2007 and is serving a 15-year sentence for repeated drug offenses.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

Search site | Terms of service