Eric started his pilgrimage in a stolen van, sped to escape the cops -- and died in a rollover accident hundreds of miles from home. His girlfriend, also sixteen, was seriously injured in the accident.
Eric's death ended everything that his parents had hoped for.
"We wanted the best for them," says Eric's mother, Eustolia Galvez.
Galvez came to the United States from Mexico in the mid-'80s and soon gave birth to Eric. She married Guzman after he arrived in this country a decade ago, and they had two more boys, Ricardo and Pedro. The town they lived in outside Los Angeles was poor, and so was the family. Guzman had a job in a clothes factory, and Galvez helped make ends meet by working in a lunch truck.
Even though they would be leaving behind brothers, sisters and cousins -- by then, most of their relatives had moved to California -- they hoped to find better jobs in Colorado. And while their lack of English limited their opportunities, Guzman quickly found employment with a landscaping company. Galvez babysits.
Through an interpreter, Eric's parents say that they don't know why their son ran away. They say they don't know why Eric started getting in trouble not long after they arrived in Colorado. They don't know why he stole cars, threatened other youngsters or claimed membership in a gang.
Maybe he didn't know, either.
Eric's presence is everywhere in the Guzmans' cramped basement apartment in Aurora. His video games sit beneath the television set. Pictures of Jennifer Lopez, torn from magazines and taped to the walls, still surround his twin bed in the room he shared with his two younger brothers.
Religious objects cover tabletops and shelves throughout the cramped apartment. The furniture and rugs are old and worn. The rooms are dark, and the overhead lights shake with every movement upstairs.
On a small table in the living room is a shrine to the fallen boy.
The family has lit a candle adorned with a picture of the Virgin Mary and the words "Maria Milagros." A plastic replica of Jesus on the cross sits upright in a tumbler filled with pinto beans, next to a pot of pink flowers and a vase of dead carnations.
Eric looks up at his family from several pictures propped on the table. A recent photo shows a stocky teen with glasses standing next to his young girlfriend. Another shows him in Mexico at a party for his then-ninety-year-old great-grandfather. A third is a formal pose taken years earlier, with Eric standing behind a chair in a book-lined room.
In 2001, Eric was caught riding with some other boys in a stolen car and arrested for possession of a firearm, possession of a stolen vehicle and running away. At least two other boys were charged, but the case against Eric was dropped.
The police resource officers at his school, Aurora Central, came to know Eric very well.
"He was a poor example to set for the other kids," says Aurora police officer Dwight Chaplin. "He was a self-admitted gang member. He said he belonged to Sureno 13, which is a Southern California gang."
(Eric's claims to the contrary, members of the Aurora Police Department's gang unit say that Eric was not on their gang list and not identified as a member of Sureno 13 -- also known as Sur 13 -- or any other gang.)
"He was a pretty troubled kid in school," Chaplin says, "but he was a very good person when we dealt with him. He didn't really give us a hard time. I think primarily when you're used to dealing with someone one-on-one on a regular basis, you have a rapport."
The resource officers kept in touch with Eric's parents, whom Chaplin describes as "very good parents, very concerned parents."
But that wasn't enough to save Eric.
Eric was arrested again in October 2002, this time for felony menacing, aggravated motor-vehicle theft and criminal trespass.
According to Arapahoe County court records, Eric stole a car and used it to threaten two teenage girls. When he was arrested, his parents say, his then-fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Nikki Buelich, was with him.
Eric pleaded guilty to felony menacing and second-degree motor-vehicle theft and was sentenced to two years' probation, 45 days of pre-sentence time he'd served in juvenile detention, and thirty hours of community service, which he performed at Mount Nebo Cemetery in Aurora. He was ordered to stay away from gang members.
He was also expelled from high school for the remainder of the school year.
Eric visited his probation officer about once a week, finished his community service and searched, unsuccessfully, for a job. He did "everything right with probation," says Guzman. "No trouble."
"No drugs," Galvez adds in English. "Nothing. He was always home. He would help take care of the kids."
"The only time he left was when he went to visit Nikki," Guzman says.
But on April 22 of this year, Eric was arrested for trespassing near the high school. Police officers called his mother, who was unable to come pick him up and asked the officers to just send him home. Although Arapahoe County officials have no record of that arrest (it may have been a municipal crime), friends say that Eric feared his probation might be revoked because of it.
When school started on August 19, Eric was allowed to return to class.
On August 21, a Thursday, Guzman drove Eric to school. "He was just normal," Guzman says. "I told him to be good in school. He didn't come home that night."
Chaplin says a friend of Eric's later told him that Eric planned to run away to California to start a new life. "He apparently asked at least one other person if he wanted to go, but he didn't," Chaplin says.
Nikki wanted to go, though. Eric stole a van and they fled together.
When Eric didn't come home that evening, Guzman tracked down his son's friends. They said they didn't know where Eric was. Nikki's mother came to the family's apartment to see if her daughter was there. That was the first Eric's family knew that she was missing, too.
Nikki's mother didn't like Eric, his parents say. She believed that Eric was a bad influence on her daughter and that the teens were overly serious. (Nikki's mother could not be reached for comment.)
And it's true that Eric was obsessed with his girlfriend, whom he'd been dating for two years.
"He was always talking about her," Galvez says. "Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. And he wanted to marry her. We told him to wait, that he was too young."
The thought that the two teens might have run away to be together crossed everyone's mind.
The next morning, Guzman went to the police department to report that Eric had run away.
"They said I had to wait 72 hours to make a report," he says.
Eric didn't have that long.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on Friday, August 22, Eric and Nikki ditched the stolen van behind the Timberline Cafe in Beaver, Utah, a tiny enclave just off Interstate 15 in the southwestern part of the state. Eric promptly stole another vehicle, punching out the ignition of a 1997 Jeep Cherokee.
Beaver County Sheriff Ken Yardley thinks Eric got rid of the van because it was out of gas. "They left it running," he says, "and it only ran for a short period of time."
And then Eric's luck ran out. A Timberline employee saw him take the Cherokee and immediately called police. When he got the call from dispatch, Sheriff's Deputy Cody Black was next door to the restaurant, filling up his patrol car. Black was behind Eric before the Cherokee had gone more than two miles.
As Eric drove onto the interstate, the sheriff's car was joined by one from the Utah Highway Patrol, and the officers turned on their red and blue lights.
Eric hit the accelerator.
The officers dropped back about a half-mile behind the stolen vehicle, hoping that Eric would slow down. "If they stay up close, there's a tendency to push," Yardley says. "A lot of times they'll drop back, hoping the speed will drop back down. But I know there were speeds up to 100 mph."
At Paragonah, about 26 miles south of Beaver, the Cherokee careened off the exit ramp as Eric attempted to negotiate the turn. The car flipped several times, ejecting Eric and Nikki, neither of whom was wearing a seat belt. Nikki was unconscious when officers reached her; Eric was awake.
"Our first thought was that she was the most critically injured," Yardley says. "She had head trauma and was badly hurt."
The teens were rushed to Valley View Medical Center in Cedar City, about twenty miles south of the accident site. From there, Nikki was flown to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City.
"An individual I talked to said it looked like she was going to make it, but I'm not sure how much she'll recover," Yardley says.
Eric died at the hospital in Cedar City. He was just three months past his sixteenth birthday.
Eric's parents learned that Eric had died in a late-night call from the hospital. They still don't know the cause of death.
"They're going to send a letter about that," Guzman says. When it comes, they may have to have someone translate it for them.
Eric's death hit his younger brothers -- Ricardo, nine, and Pedro, six -- hard.
"At first they were crying," Galvez says, "but we told them he was with God, and they understand. We told them he was there and that he was fine and happy."
The boys are friendly and eager to show people their room, Eric's photos and Eric's computer games. Pedro picks up one of Eric's games and hands it to a visitor: Grand Theft Auto.
Eric's parents don't believe that game had anything to do with Eric's penchant for stealing cars. Guzman quickly points out other computer games -- simulated football, baseball, skateboarding and motorcycle racing -- and says that Eric's interests were more well-rounded.
"Eric wanted to go into the Army," Galvez says.
"He wanted to be a mechanic," Guzman says. "He always helped with my car. He didn't drive it; he just helped me fix it."
They say they may never know where Eric was headed the night he died -- or why he left in the first place.
"The only way we'll know what happened is if Nikki tells," Galvez says. (The girl's condition has been upgraded to fair.) "She's the only one who knows."
As for the rest of their family, Galvez and Guzman can only hope that they'll be able to keep the boys from following in Eric's footsteps.
"We do the same thing and try to keep them from gangs," Guzman says. "We do what we can."
