BLACKFOOT — Bingham County has dropped the second-degree murder charge against a Venezuelan man accused of fatally shooting a fellow Venezuelan on Interstate 15 near Fort Hall last year.

Seventh District Judge James Howard Barrett Jr. dismissed the state murder case against Joaquin Jose Gonzalez Mendoza, 37, of Utah, Monday after a federal grand jury indicted him March 11 on more serious charges, court records show.

The case was dismissed without prejudice the same day Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney Ryan W. Jolley filed a motion seeking the dismissal citing the federal grand jury indictment accusing Gonzalez Mendoza of murder-for-hire and kidnapping counts as the sole grounds for dropping the state case.

“The defendant has been federally indicted,” Jolley wrote in his motion.

Federal prosecutors with the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah indicted Gonzalez Mendoza on March 10 on two counts, the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and kidnapping resulting in death. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge David Sam.

The federal indictment alleges that on Feb. 28, 2025, Gonzalez Mendoza traveled from Clearfield, Utah, to approximately mile marker 85 on Interstate 15 in Idaho with the intent to have a man, identified only as Victim-1, murdered, and that he did so in exchange for $5,000.

The kidnapping count alleges Gonzalez Mendoza seized and held Victim-1, resulting in the victim’s death, and willfully traveled across state lines in furtherance of the offense.

The victim is Alexander Jose Duran Pirela, a 27-year-old Venezuelan national who was living in Mapleton, Utah, legally on a work visa, according to prior reporting by the Idaho State Journal.

Idaho State Police troopers found Pirela dead in the driver’s seat of his white Toyota Camry on the shoulder of I-15 north of the Fort Hall exit on Feb. 28, 2025, according to police and court records the Idaho State Journal obtained last year. An autopsy by the Ada County Coroner’s Office determined he died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and neck, police said. Nine 9mm casings were found around the exterior of the vehicle, court records show.

Investigators say Pirela unwittingly helped crack the case against his alleged killer in the hours before his death.

Pirela texted a photo of Gonzalez Mendoza to a friend earlier that day, then video called the same friend while pointing his camera toward the rear of Gonzalez Mendoza’s vehicle as he followed it along I-15, court records show. The friend took a screenshot from the video and sent both images to Pirela’s father in Mexico, who later provided them to Idaho State Police and FBI investigators.

The two men knew each other through their shared work as grocery delivery drivers in Utah, Gonzalez Mendoza told investigators during an April 2, 2025, interview at the Spanish Fork Police Department. He said both men had been driving from Utah to Idaho Falls in search of work when car trouble forced them to stop near the scene of the murder.

Gonzalez Mendoza told investigators he was fixing a fuel injector under the hood of his car when he heard gunshots. When he looked up, he said he saw a dark vehicle alongside his car and a man he identified as “El Gocho” pointing a gun at his head. He said “El Gocho” then forced him into his own car at gunpoint and ordered him to drive back to Salt Lake City, court records show.

Authorities were unable to corroborate that account. Using traffic cameras, license plate readers along I-15, security camera footage from a private residence near the crime scene and cell phone data for both men, investigators pieced together a timeline placing Pirela and Gonzalez Mendoza in the same location along I-15 at the time of Pirela’s death, court records show.

Under federal law, a conviction on the murder-for-hire statute is punishable by up to life in prison or the death penalty. The federal kidnapping resulting in death charge also carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment or death.

Gonzalez Mendoza had faced a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison under the state charge, plus a potential 15-year enhancement for use of a deadly weapon.

The dismissal without prejudice means state authorities retain the legal option to refile charges, though the federal prosecution makes that scenario unlikely.

U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak’s office, along with trial attorneys Julie A. Childress, James E. Keller and Jacob H. Operskalski of the U.S. Department of Justice, are prosecuting the federal case.

Gonzalez Mendoza is no longer incarcerated at the Bingham County Jail and the Journal has been unable to confirm where he is currently incarcerated. He has not entered a plea in the federal proceeding.