In the early morning hours of August 18th, 2013, what began as an apparent robbery inside a Richmond, Virginia, residence ended with a man dead, two armed intruders on the run, and a homicide investigation that would remain unresolved for more than thirteen years.
Victor Amilcar Soriano-Aviles, a forty-year-old resident of Chesterfield County, was visiting a residence on Clarkson Road when two masked men entered through the back door and demanded money. Within moments, a violent confrontation erupted. One of the intruders struck Victor with a handgun, a struggle broke out, and Victor was shot in the head.
The two assailants fled the residence without taking anything, leaving behind a mortally wounded man and witnesses who could offer police only limited descriptions of the attackers.
The shooting occurred at 1754 Clarkson Road, Apartment B, on Richmond’s South Side, shortly after midnight on Sunday, August 18th, 2013. According to the Richmond Police Department’s cold case records, two unidentified men entered the residence through a rear door. Both had slender builds, and witnesses described their faces as concealed by dark masks.
Once inside, the intruders demanded money. At least one was carrying a black handgun, which he used to strike Victor in the face.
Victor’s cousin, identified in police records as Buenerge DeJesus Soriano, was also present. As the confrontation unfolded, Buenerge struggled with the armed intruder. During the struggle, the gunman fired a shot, striking Victor once in the head. Both suspects escaped through the rear door and disappeared in an unknown direction.
Curiously, despite the demand for money and the extreme violence of the encounter, investigators reported that nothing was stolen. The apparent robbery had ended in a homicide without the intruders obtaining any valuables.
At approximately twelve sixteen a.m., Richmond police received a report of a shooting inside the Clarkson Road residence. Officers identified in the case record as Harris and Carter responded. When they entered the apartment, they discovered Victor lying on the living room floor, suffering from a gunshot wound to his head.
Emergency personnel transported him to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, where he later died of his injuries.
Investigators publicly characterized the crime as a home-invasion robbery, but the available police records do not establish whether the intruders knew Victor or anyone else in the residence. There is also no publicly documented evidence identifying the intended robbery target.
In the days following Victor’s murder, Richmond police released descriptions of the two men they believed were responsible. Both suspects were described as Black men between approximately twenty and twenty-five years old, standing between five feet nine inches and five feet ten inches tall and weighing between 160 and 180 pounds. The first suspect was described as dark-skinned and wearing all-black clothing and a mask. The second was described as wearing dark clothing. The more detailed cold case account indicates that witnesses recalled both intruders having their faces covered.
Police have not publicly disclosed whether fingerprints, DNA, or other forensic evidence were recovered from the apartment. The available records also do not establish whether investigators determined how the suspects arrived at or escaped from the residence.
Victor’s killing occurred during an unusually violent weekend in Richmond. Between Saturday night, August 17th, and Sunday, August 18th, six people were shot in four separate incidents across the city. Two of those shootings were fatal.
Just hours before Victor was attacked, for example, eighteen-year-old Garrick Lamont Ellis was shot while walking with friends in Richmond’s North Side. Ellis fled after being wounded but collapsed on East Brookland Park Boulevard. He was transported to the hospital, where he died.
Investigators did not believe the shootings were connected, although robbery appeared to be a possible motive in several of the weekend’s incidents.
The surviving witnesses were able to provide police with a reasonably clear description of the sequence of events. Investigators knew how the attackers entered, what they demanded, how the confrontation escalated, and which exit they used to escape.What they apparently lacked was enough information to establish who the attackers were.
One especially troubling aspect of the crime is that Victor was not the person described as physically struggling with the gunman. According to the cold case summary, it was Victor’s cousin who wrestled with the armed intruder. Nevertheless, Victor was the one who suffered the fatal gunshot wound. The public records do not make clear whether the gunman deliberately aimed at Victor or whether the weapon discharged during the struggle.
The robbery itself also remains somewhat mysterious. Police reported that the suspects demanded money but left empty-handed. It is possible that the struggle and shooting caused them to abandon their original objective, but this has not been publicly established.
There are other important gaps in the public account. Investigators have not disclosed why the men selected that particular apartment, whether they had previously encountered its occupants, or whether any witness recognized something about their voices or behavior. Nor is there enough publicly available information to reconstruct Victor’s activities before the shooting or explain why he was at the Clarkson Road residence that night.
As of October 2026, the Virginia Cold Case Database continues to classify Victor’s homicide as active, indicating that investigators have not closed the case.
