The Berkeley Police Department is offering a $50,000 reward for any informational leads on the unsolved murder of Adolfo Ignacio Celedón Bravo.
The department announced the increased reward amount Saturday,which marked 16 yearssince two men shot Celedón in the early morning hours of his 35th birthday Sept. 12, 2010.
Around 3:41 a.m. that day, Celedón was walking home from his birthday party with his fiancee Amber Nelson when the two were confronted by two men who intended to rob them. The suspects shot Celedón and punched his fiancee in the face during the robbery before fleeing in an SUV. Celedón died shortly after he was shot.
The couple was walking back from Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center in West Berkeley, according to Berkeleyside coverage in 2020. BPD said the couple was confronted by the suspects near the intersection of Adeline and Emerson streets, which is near the Ashby BART station.
Celedón was from Chile and moved to Berkeley to be with Nelson.A donation made by the Chilean government increased the reward for any information about Celedón’s case to $20,000 in July 2011, just 10 months after he died.Now, the reward has been more than doubled to the current $50,000.
The announcement of this award comes after BPD announced a separate $50,000 reward for information related to the unsolved murder of Alex Goodwin Jr., who was shot outside his home in the San Pablo Park neighborhood in 2016.
In 2019, the Berkeley City Council increased the maximum reward amount that the police department could provide for information on unsolved cases, raising the limit from $15,000 to $50,000.
Nelson, Celedón’s fiancee, was a UC Berkeley graduate student in 2010, studying architecture.
Nelson posted a plea video in 2020,10 years after Celedón was murdered, asking people to come forward with any information they had.
“They punched me to the ground, and they shot him so many times he couldn’t get up,” Nelson said in the plea video. “Then, those cowards fled away in an old SUV and have gotten away with it for 10 years. That’s 10 years too long.”
Nelson has since painted a mural reading “Imagine” at the intersection where Celedón had been shot. Berkeleyside reported that she created a collage of photos that were taken of the painting every day for two years.
Nelson returned to Berkeley in 2017 to oppose a development that would require destroying a garden she had planted in Celedón’s honor.
“We have no choice but to live an amazing life because of what he’s taught us,” Nelson said in the plea video. “You can imagine the suffering I’ve endured, not only for losing Fito but for losing … the future we were going to build together.”
BPD is asking anyone with information to contact the department’s investigation division at 510-981-5741 or the 24-hour non-emergency line at 510-981-5900.