Sixteen years after he was gunned down on his 35th birthday after coming to his fiancée's defense during an attempted robbery, the murder of Adolfo Ignacio Celedón Bravo remains unsolved, and the Berkeley Police Department is once again asking the public for help. The department is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for killing Celedón, who was known to friends and family as Fito.
According to the Berkeley Police Department, Celedón was walking home with his fiancée early on September 12, 2010, after attending a party, when two male suspects confronted the couple at the intersection of Adeline and Emerson streets. As reported by Berkeleyside, the pair had been walking home after celebrating at the Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center when the assailants pointed a gun at Celedón's fiancée. The shooting happened at approximately 3:41 a.m., the same news outlet reported, and Celedón was shot multiple times after coming to his fiancée's defense during the attempted robbery.
The two men fled in a dark, older-model SUV and have never been publicly identified or charged. Celedón was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland, Alameda County's primary adult trauma center, where he died from his gunshot wounds later that morning, according to reporting by La Tercera.
A Life Uprooted for Berkeley, Cut Short Within Months
Celedón was a native of Chile who had studied business engineering and worked for IBM before leaving corporate life behind to pursue acting and street theater and lead theater workshops in Berkeley. Berkeleyside reported that he moved to Berkeley in February 2010 to join his fiancée, a UC Berkeley architecture graduate student — meaning he had lived in the city for approximately seven months before he was killed.
His fiancée later transformed the crime scene into a lasting tribute. Per SFGATE, she created a commemorative garden at Adeline and Emerson planted with poppies, succulents, bougainvillea, and jasmine, along with a circular mural saying “Imagine.” The garden later hosted a family gathering to plant in it.
Chilean Government Pushed Early Reward Higher
The case involved Chilean government and consular assistance early on. Oakland North reported that the Chilean government provided consular coordination and financial assistance that helped raise the initial investigation reward to $20,000 in 2011. A decade later, the family was still seeking answers about the unsolved murder.
Why the Reward Is $50,000 Today
The current reward amount traces back to a policy shift at Berkeley City Hall. Berkeleyside reported that in March 2019 the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to raise the city's maximum reward ceiling for critical tips in homicide cases from $15,000 to $50,000, updating a cap that had stood since 1998. Under that policy, rewards are paid upon conviction from existing department allocations.
In August 2026, Patch reported that the department re-publicized a $50,000 reward in the 2016 shooting death of 22-year-old Alex Goodwin Jr. near San Pablo Park just weeks before Celedón's anniversary came around again this year. Separately, the state has its own mechanism: under California Penal Code Section 1547, the Governor's Reward Program for Unsolved Crimes allows state rewards of up to $50,000 for unsolved homicides when law enforcement formally requests them, a program Governor Gavin Newsom re-released for 27 statewide cold cases in April 2026, according to the official CA.gov portal.
A Changing Neighborhood, an Unchanged Question
The intersection where Celedón died sits just blocks from the Ashby BART station lot, where BART and the City of Berkeley recently picked a team to build 600 homes. As that redevelopment reshapes the Adeline corridor, the identities of the two men who fled the scene in 2010 remain unknown.
Berkeley police are asking anyone with information about the case to come forward. Tips can be directed to the department's Investigations Division—Homicide Detail at (510) 981-5741, or to the BPD non-emergency line, a 24-hour number, at (510) 981-5900.
