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Christopher Almaral was convicted of first-degree murder with a firearm in December 2019 for fatally shooting Stephanie Curtis twice along State Route 821 in Kittitas County, Washington, on January 7, 2018. The jury rejected his claim of self-defense.

Almaral, about 24 or 25, was an Ellensburg resident who identified himself as a North Side Varrio, or NSV, street gang member affiliated with Norteños. Curtis, 34, was a mother of three from the Toppenish/Wapato area and had no prior relationship with him. The strangers met by chance at Legends Casino in Toppenish on January 6, when Curtis approached Almaral, who was wearing all red gang colors, and his coworker and friend Pedro Garcia de la Cruz. She complimented Almaral and said she wanted to party and drink. Garcia was not charged.

The three left in Almaral's red Mercedes, stopped for alcohol and drove toward Ellensburg and Mill Pond. They briefly visited a friend's trailer, where Almaral used cocaine and Curtis drank. Almaral and Curtis then left alone. He later said alcohol and cocaine left him unable to keep driving, so he stopped on the remote, cold canyon road and told Curtis she would have to continue alone, offering her cash and a blanket.

Almaral said Curtis became angry, struck him, took his short-barreled shotgun from the trunk and pointed it at him. He said he feared a rival-gang setup. He shot her in the chest and then the head with a .38-caliber handgun. The shots were fired at close range and at a downward angle, and an autopsy found the head wound was fatal. Curtis was killed at the scene, about 4 miles south of Ellensburg. A passing motorist found her body between about 7 and 7:30 a.m.

Almaral had demonstrated the short-barreled shotgun to Curtis earlier. After the shooting, he recovered it, placed it in the trunk and returned to the trailer. He falsely told Garcia he had dropped Curtis at home, then drove Garcia home without mentioning the killing. Investigators identified Almaral through casino surveillance showing the trio leaving in the Mercedes, traffic and business video, and the vehicle's link to his family. He was arrested around January 16 or 17, 2018.

In a recorded jail interview later played at trial, Almaral admitted shooting Curtis but initially described her reaching for a gun and a perceived rival-gang threat. His trial testimony added details involving the shotgun and a knee to the groin. His account also differed over the sequence of events and conflicted with his claim that he left Curtis safely, the abandonment of her body on a freezing roadside and his lie to Garcia. Other evidence included red clothing recovered from his residence and vehicle, text messages with Garcia, a Dollar Tree receipt, Curtis's hospital bracelet and the autopsy findings. Police found the .38 handgun in the vehicle's center console and the short-barreled shotgun at the residence. The handgun was consistent with Curtis's wounds and had been stolen, though the jury acquitted Almaral of possessing a stolen firearm.

Prosecutors charged Almaral with first-degree, premeditated murder of Stephanie Curtis with a firearm allegation, possession of a stolen firearm, possession of a controlled substance, cocaine, and possession of an unlawful firearm, the short-barreled shotgun. He pleaded guilty before trial to the drug and unlawful-firearm counts. After the December 2019 trial in Kittitas County Superior Court, he received what public appellate records describe only as a "lengthy" prison term for murder, plus 36 months of community custody, on February 7, 2020. In 2022, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division III, affirmed the first-degree murder conviction, vacated the controlled-substance conviction under State v. Blake, vacated the unlawful-firearm plea and remanded the case for further proceedings and resentencing. The murder conviction stood.

The video is an unnarrated police interview-room recording that runs about 55 minutes. It presents the interview itself without a presenter or added analysis.