Arizona man pleads guilty to fatally shooting woman on I-10 near Desert Center

A 19-year-old Arizona man charged in the shooting death of a woman who was found inside a car alongside Interstate 10 near Desert Center pleaded guilty today to involuntary manslaughter.

Kyler Jeffrey Arnold of Chandler, Arizona, was arrested in July in connection with the death of Delores Baez Meraz, 59, of Nogales, Mexico.

Sheriff’s deputies found Baez-Meraz at 5:46 p.m. on July 24, 2016 inside a vehicle on the shoulder of westbound Interstate 10, about two miles west of Eagle Mountain Road. Baez-Meraz was airlifted to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, where she was pronounced dead.

Arnold also pleaded guilty Tuesday to possession of controlled substances while armed, contraband in jail, carrying a loaded firearm in a public place and a sentence-enhancing allegation of inflicting bodily injury with a firearm.

Investigators from the sheriff’s Colorado River Station and Central Homicide Unit arrested Arnold the following morning on North Spring Street in Blythe.

Arnold is set to be sentenced on June 12.