‘Somebody played God’

Members of Ana Rascon's family: cousins Emma, Laura Lopez and Maria Lopez and kids. Rascon was killed in winter of 2021 by Jorge Solis and was sentenced to 42 years in prison for the crime. (Photo by Abigail Harrison)

(Editor's note: Quotes from Anabel Avalos were translated from Spanish by Laura Lopez.)

Ana Rascon and her cousins spent their summers in Grand Junction playing pretend in sharp desert heat. It was cops and robbers or fake restaurant: Ana might be the curly-haired chef, her cousins Emma Valdez, Laura and Lupita Lopez the waitresses or customers, eating invisible meals on hard dirt. They shared bedrooms, parents, meals and secrets as dry air whipped around them. Even as adult family members entered and exited from their adolescent worlds, they had each other to bear the repeated change. 

As they grew older, daughters became mothers. Each cousin got pregnant and welcomed their babies into the world. Ana was just a child when Laura had her first, but she would not leave the baby’s side, trying to help bathe and feed him at every opportunity. When Emma had her first child, Ana was by her side for six weeks — helping her take showers, cooking her meals and caring for her newborn; a type of labor often done by sisters and mothers, uncomplicated and selfless. Ana would have three children of her own, the first when she was just 17, and would become the most protective mother in the bunch, chiding her family for playing too rough with her kids or sneaking them treats.

“She had been told she couldn't have kids and she ended up having three.They were her whole world. She was really patient with them and protective with them, and they never left her side,” Lupita said. 

But Ana would not live to see her own children become parents. In the spring of 2021, she was brutally murdered in the Arrowhead Subdivision, just across Blue Mesa Reservoir. Jorge Solis was later arrested and charged with her death. After beating her until she was unconscious and unable to further defend herself, Solis took her life. She was just 22 years old. The case would drag on for two years, but ultimately settle in a plea deal that put him in prison for 42 years.

“When somebody is taken from the world, it’s different to losing somebody to illness or accident. Somebody played God,” Emma said.

Solis was sentenced on March 3, 2023 in Gunnison County District Court. That day, Rascon’s family and friends packed the courthouse, occupying nearly every seat on the right side. Some wore shirts bearing her photo — a selfie with her broad smile — and an inscription, “In Loving Memory.” Emma, Laura, Lupita and Ana’s mother, Anabel Avalos, expressed their disagreement with the plea deal at the hearing, saying it was devoid of justice, considering the violence of Ana’s death. 

“That damned man didn't give her any chance. He took her life like it was nothing and didn't give her any chances,” Anabel said.

“I felt very sad, because it was just another reminder that Ana is gone,” Laura said. “ [But] I was happy to see the people that cared for her there. There were a lot of people on the phone too, who were out of state and out of the country that were listening to it. That just showed that Ana really did catch people's hearts … At one point I just didn't even know what to feel anymore.”

*****

Ana was born in Grand Junction, but she moved back and forth between the city and her mother’s home of Agua Prieta, in Sonora, Mexico. Unlike her siblings, who chose to stay in the border town with their mother, Ana was always drawn back to Colorado. There, she built a life with her cousins, forging a reputation as headstrong, independent, a good cook who seasoned all things with lime and a talented singer — but above all, her devotion to family shone.

“She felt for other people deeply. She would see a sad movie or hear a sad story and there would be tears coming down her face,” Laura said. “When she was very happy, she would cry, just tears of joy, big tears of joy. And because her skin was so fair, she would get so red.”

But it was motherhood that moved Ana most, she said. She wept when she saw images of her first son on an ultrasound, again when he developed eczema as a toddler and again when she became pregnant with her second son — this time about what it meant to become a mother of two so young.

After her parents split up, Ana kept in touch with her father, Gildardo Rascon Valencia, mostly through Snapchat and text. Years ago, when he was living in West Texas, Ana called him from Grand Junction and said her car had broken down. Gildardo drove up and helped her put it in the shop. When he visited, he recalled that she always made time to put a meal on the table. 

“She's always here with me,” Gildardo said. “I feel her, sometimes. I cook at the house, and she has moved things around me, trying to get my attention. And I don’t think she's very happy out there. She didn’t want to go yet. It wasn't the best [time] for her to go.”

Ana later moved to Rifle to be with her boyfriend and the father of her third child. That’s when things started to get hard, Emma said. When the relationship with her daughter’s father ended, she was isolated from her family, who lived 50 miles away in Grand Junction. Rascon started using drugs in November of 2020, just months before her death. It was during this period that she met and started spending time with Solis.

“When I was told that Ana was getting high, I didn't believe it. I was like, ‘No, I don't think so. I don't think so Mom,’ but I hadn't seen her in a while … and then everything just happened so fast. We chatted about her taking her trip to Mexico. She was really going through it,” Lupita said. 

A shrine for Ana Rascon in cousin Lupita Lopez's home in Olathe. (Photo by Abigail Harrison)

The cousins knew she was having a hard time being a single mom, and had also been battling depression. Driven to provide for her kids, Ana considered long-haul trucking for a living. She traveled to Idaho with her Dad to meet brokers, before ultimately backing off due to the amount of time she would have to be away from her children. Instead, Ana took her kids to Mexico for a short time so her mother could watch over them while she got back on her feet.

Still, the news of her hardship felt unbelievable, Laura said, because Ana was always the one looking after their kids, seemingly unmoved by the mountains of obligations before her. 

“Ana wasn't perfect, she was only human,” Laura said. “No one is perfect. But she had an amazing heart … she had her down moments, but she would try to lift herself up. She would get right back up and just try to be happy again. That's all she wanted, was to be happy.”

Months before her death, Anabel called her sister to say that she was worried something was going to happen to Ana. And after she disappeared and before her body was found, her mother told the cousins that she thought Ana was dead.

*****

In late February, Ana made preparations to bring her kids back from Agua Prieta. On Thursday, March 4, she met up with Laura and her mother at a Grand Junction Village Inn for breakfast. There, Ana cried and did not stop crying, Laura said. Afterwards, she used her recent tax return to get her tires changed out. The nearly 800-mile drive to Mexico would put a good amount of wear on them. The next day, on Friday, she called her mom to let her know she was coming. On Saturday morning, Ana called Lupita, but her phone was off. As the day wore on, Ana’s mother did not hear from her. Ana would not make it to Mexico. The same day she was supposed to pick up her children, Solis took her life.

Anabel knew right away that something was wrong when she didn’t hear from her daughter — while she was caring for Ana’s children, communication had never ceased, even despite her struggles to stay sober. That following Monday, her entire family was frantically calling hospitals and jails. On Monday they requested a welfare check. A call that soon came from Colorado State Troopers would provide the answer no one, besides Ana’s mother, expected.

Even Anabel didn’t know that Ana was using right up until her death, she just knew her daughter was struggling. She pleaded with her to move back to Mexico so she could help her, but Ana refused, concerned that her children would be too far separated from their dads. 

“I couldn't help her. I couldn't pull her out of that hole she was in,” Anabel said. “I was always talking to her over the phone and text messaging her. And always, she would try not to worry me, but I knew something was happening. Unfortunately, it was too late.”

To Lupita, time seemed abundant. Facebook messages promising reunions could go on forever without consequence. 

“It was short conversations like ‘yes, I'm gonna go see you’ or ‘you better come see me,’ type of things. But life, for one reason or another, kept getting in the way. We never got to visit each other, and that was really unfortunate, you know?” she said.

Once Ana’s body was discovered, her mother wanted her back in Mexico immediately. Her body was transported there in the weeks after her death for burial and her children went to live with their fathers. As the news of her death rippled through the large family, they braced for what would come: a painful investigation, a years-long court process and the daily reminders of her absence. 

“There’s still times that I am looking for her,”  Laura said. “If there’s a crowded room and a person with dark curly hair turns around, it might be her.”

(Abby Harrison can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or abby@gunnisontimes.com.)