Olga Rosalva Rios

Olga Rosalva Rios was a 40 year old single mother from Albertville, Alabama, who worked in health care, often taking on double shifts cleaning patient rooms to support her three children. She was not a public figure during her lifetime, but her name has become widely known since her violent death in September 2025 and the murder indictment handed up against her estranged husband more than a year later, in October 2026.

Rios was born on April 11, 1985. Friends and family describe her as a hard working mother who raised a son, Oscar, and twin daughters, Magali and Maite, while juggling a demanding job. A friend and former coworker, Lori Diamond, who had known her for more than sixteen years, later told reporters that the two were like sisters.

On the morning of September 22, 2025, deputies with the Marshall County Sheriff's Office responded to a home on Martling Road near Albertville after a report of a woman who had been shot. When deputies arrived, they found Rios's adult son performing CPR on her. She was pronounced dead at the scene by Marshall County Coroner Cody Nugent. Her estranged husband, Hilario Rios-Ortiz, who lived in a separate mobile home on the same property, was identified as a suspect within hours and was taken into custody that same morning, initially on a charge of being a certain person forbidden from possessing a firearm, with bond set at 100,000 dollars. An immigration detainer was also placed on him.

Rios's identity was not made public immediately. It was not until late October 2025 that Diamond came forward to identify her publicly as the victim, describing her as a single mother who often worked double shifts in health care to make ends meet for her family. Investigators spent nearly a month gathering evidence, including a search of Rios-Ortiz's residence that turned up digital evidence, vehicles and firearms, before the case moved toward the grand jury.

More than a year after her death, on October 14, 2026, a Marshall County grand jury indicted Hilario Rios-Ortiz on one count of murder, alleging that he intentionally caused her death by shooting her with a firearm. The indictment does not represent a finding of guilt, and the case is proceeding through the courts. Rios's death, and the length of time it took to bring charges, drew renewed attention in her community to the dangers of domestic violence and the difficulty of prosecuting killings with no witnesses.

Rios was remembered at a funeral mass on September 27, 2025, at Chapel of the Holy Cross in Albertville, and she was laid to rest at Memory Hill Cemetery. She is survived by her son, her twin daughters, her mother Maria Rios, and her sister Irma Rios. Her father, Asuncion Rios, died before her.