An Arizona man accused in the fatal shooting of his former high school football teammate has been found not guilty.
Peter Clabron, known as “PJ,” was 18 when he was arrested after the death of Jeremiah Aviles, also 18, who was shot at Clabron’s Mesa home on May 7, 2023.
Aviles, who died just weeks before he was set to graduate from high school, was remembered at vigils and memorials as a disciplined, gifted athlete with a bright future in football.
Clabron, now 21, was acquitted Wednesday of manslaughter, the lesser charge of negligent homicide, and unlawful discharge of a firearm.
The trial, which opened on June 9, focused largely on a central question: who was holding the gun at the moment Aviles was shot.
Court records had previously alleged that Clabron and a witness initially gave false statements to investigators and attempted to shift blame to someone who was not in the room when the shooting occurred.
Prosecutors maintained that Clabron had been intoxicated and handled a loaded firearm recklessly before shooting Aviles. Their case leaned heavily on testimony from another teenager who was present in the room.
Defense attorneys challenged that account, arguing the witness could not be trusted and that forensic evidence did not support his version of events.
On July 1, Peter ‘PJ’ Clabron was cleared of all charges over the 2023 shooting death of Jeremiah Aviles, an 18-year-old Red Mountain High School football player with college dreams
On May 7 2023, within a bedroom at Clabron’s residence, a firearm was discharged, fatally striking Aviles, who was just weeks away from graduating high school
Emergency crews rushed to the scene shortly before 2am, but upon arrival Aviles was pronounced dead inside the home
Jurors deliberated for about an hour before reaching the not guilty verdict on Wednesday.
Clabron was overcome with emotion as the verdicts were read, tearing up as the court clerk announced he was not guilty on each charge.
The tragedy took place when Aviles was killed in a bedroom at Clabron’s home near Gilbert Road and University Drive in Mesa.
Mesa Police Officers responded to reports of shots fired in a house on the 2300 block of east Camino St.
According to officials the student-athlete was visiting Clabron’s home at the time.
Aviles, Clabron, and another teen were in one of the home’s bedrooms when the shooting took place.
Police initially said Clabron called 911 and reported that a gun ‘went off’ killing Aviles at the scene and that the person holding the gun had fled.
At the center of the prosecution’s case was testimony from Champ Gennicks, the third teen in the room.
Prosecutors said Gennicks eventually emerged with the account after talking to his father and never wavered from the central notion that Clabron shot Aviles.
His death sparked vigils, memorials and widespread grief across Mesa, where friends and teammates remembered him as driven, loyal and full of promise.
Witness statements shifted multiple times throughout the investigation, and defense lawyers challenged key accounts during trial
Much to the dismay of the Aviles family, jurors returned a unanimous verdict: not guilty on all charges
Deputy Maricopa County Attorney John Hudson told jurors that Gennicks had little reason to falsely accuse someone he described as a best friend and someone close to Clabron’s family.
He told jurors that Clabron was ‘fiddling with a gun’ when it went off. Then Clabron dropped it. Gennicks added that Clabron looked ‘surprised’ when the gun was fired.
Hudson also pushed back on the defense’s theory that another teen, Hector Hernandez, fired the shot.
Hudson argued Hernandez was in the bathroom when the gun went off, later grabbed two guns and fled, but did not take the weapon prosecutors said killed Aviles.
This could not be confirmed as Hernandez took his own life in 2025.
‘The thing that has never changed,’ Hudson told jurors, was that Gennicks said, ‘the defendant shot Jeremiah.’
Investigators also uncovered video evidence they said showed Clabron handling and pointing a firearm at Aviles prior to the shooting, alongside allegations of reckless gun use in the hours leading up to Aviles’ death.
The defense, however, insisted none of it proved who actually fired the fatal shot — and argued the state’s case was underpinned by inconsistent testimony rather than hard forensic certainty.
While Clabron now walks free, the trial leaves the most fundamental question still unanswered, exactly what took place inside that bedroom in the early hours of May 7.
For Aviles’ loved ones who wasted no time in accusing 18-year-old Clabron at the time, the not guilty verdict marks does not come as closure but another painful chapter in a case that has left lasting grief
Gary Nielsen, one of Clabron’s attorneys, repeatedly accused prosecutors of asking jurors to ‘jump to conclusions’ from insubstantial evidence that did not clearly establish who fired the gun.
Nielson rebutted Gennicks’s descriptions of the positioning of the individuals in the room, stating they did not match the autopsy findings, the bullet trajectory or blood-pattern evidence.
The attorney honed in on Gennicks’s claim that Aviles was shot while facing Clabron, dispelling it pointing to the medical and forensic evidence showing Aviles was in fact shot from behind.
Compounding that statement, the defense also pointed to blood evidence on Hernandez’s shorts, the lack of gunshot residue testing, uncollected clothing and questions about whether the firearm could have misfired.
Nielsen and Clabron’s other attorney Anthony Knowles, concluded that the state had constructed a insufficient selective investigation against Clabron.
In 2023, after police made the arrest of Clabron, Aviles family heaped no end of criticism on the boy for not relinquishing and admitting to the manslaughter.
‘Had you come forward, this could have been avoided. You’ve brought so much pain and grief to families, friends, and even your own teammates. You should have been straightforward,’ said Omar Sr, Aviles’s father to ABC News.
Aviles’s sister Bethany condemned the incident as ‘a betrayal’ adding that Clabron was her brothers best friend and someone he thought he could trust.
As the verdict was given on July 1, the Aviles’ family appeared distraught. Grief-stricken members of the family sobbed and held each other in the courtroom. They did not comment after the hearing.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Clabron as well as the Aviles family for comment.
