A Poway woman remains in critical condition after her ex-boyfriend allegedly forced his way into her Brighton Avenue home and attacked her with a hammer, then vanished before deputies could catch him. Nine days later, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office says the case has escalated into an active attempted murder investigation, with detectives warning the suspect may have already crossed into Mexico.
Sheriff's deputies were dispatched just before 3 AM last Tuesday to a 9-1-1 call reporting an assault with a deadly weapon at a home in the 14100 block of Brighton Avenue, according to the San Diego Sheriff. The reporting party said 38-year-old Jeronimo Cedillo had forced entry into the home and attacked 43-year-old Azucena Gonzalez Martinez, whom he had previously dated. Deputies found her inside suffering from traumatic injuries, and she was transported to a hospital, where she remains in critical condition.
@sdcrimestoppers and the Sheriff’s Homicide Unit are asking for the public’s help in locating Jeronimo Cedillo (DOB: 05/04/1988) who is wanted in an attempted murder case in Poway.
— San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) August 20, 2026
On August 11, just before 3:00 a.m., Sheriff's Deputies responded to a 9-1-1 call for an assault… pic.twitter.com/Dh1P2Ipa51
Cedillo fled the home before deputies arrived and was not located that night. Reporting from NBC 7 San Diego indicates the weapon used in the attack was a hammer, filling in a detail that initial law enforcement notices had described only as an undisclosed deadly weapon.
From Isolated Call to Homicide Unit Case
What began as a Major Crimes Division response from the Poway Sheriff's Station has since been handed to the Sheriff's Homicide Unit, which secured a felony attempted murder warrant against Cedillo over the course of the nine-day investigation. The county's own account of that timeline shows deputies initially treated the assault as an isolated incident while evidence was gathered before the case was escalated.
Emergency crews moved quickly once the call came in. Per San Diego Patch, Poway station deputies and paramedics responded to the 3 AM dispatch together, providing trauma care on scene before Gonzalez Martinez was rushed to a regional hospital trauma unit.
Cedillo, also known as Geronimo Cedillo, is described as a Hispanic man standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 200 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. He is known to frequent Los Angeles County, San Diego County and Mexico, and investigators say there is a possibility he fled south of the border after the attack. There is now an active felony warrant for his arrest on charges of attempted murder and other counts.
What a Border Crossing Would Mean for the Manhunt
If Cedillo did flee into Mexico, catching him would require binational coordination beyond a standard county manhunt. The U.S. Marshals Service Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force works with Mexican law enforcement and Interpol to track down and extradite violent felony suspects who cross the southern border out of San Diego County, according to the agency's own released procedures.
San Diego County Crime Stoppers is offering up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest, and the organization says tips can come in anonymously through its bi-national phone line at (888) 580-8477 or through encrypted web and mobile app submissions. Anyone with information about the case can also call Sheriff's Homicide Detective Eric Garcia directly at (858) 285-6330.
A Rare Case in One of the County's Safest Communities
The Poway Sheriff's Station provides contracted law enforcement services to the city's roughly 50,000 residents spread across 48 square miles, staffing just 44 sworn personnel to cover a community that typically posts one of the lowest crime rates in San Diego County, per the sheriff's office. A regional crime report from the San Diego Association of Governments found reported crimes against society in Poway dropped 9% from 2022 to 2023, reinforcing the city's reputation as an outlier of calm within the county.
The case also lands amid a broader, closely tracked pattern of intimate partner violence across the region. The San Diego Domestic Violence Council and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office recorded seven intimate partner homicides countywide in 2024, following a 30-year historical low logged the year before. Southern California's coastal and border counties, including San Diego, still post the lowest violent crime rate in the state overall, at 331 incidents per 100,000 residents, according to a 2024 report from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Potential Penalties if Cedillo Is Caught
Under California Penal Code Sections 664 and 187, a conviction for second-degree attempted murder carries a state prison sentence of 5, 7 or 9 years. If prosecutors can show the attack was willful, deliberate and premeditated, the charge instead carries a sentence of life in state prison with the possibility of parole, according to legal statutes compiled by FindLaw. No charges have been filed beyond the active arrest warrant, and Cedillo's exact whereabouts remain unknown.
