KAMR reported Potter County added a murder charge against Leonard Torres in Faith Smith's death.

A murder count added after an aggravated-assault booking is still an accusation. KAMR reported the new Potter County filing on Wednesday evening. ABC 7 Amarillo, KFDA, FOX 4, and the Amarillo Tribune had described the Oct. 1 booking as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and the Tribune also listed evading arrest. An admission a charging document says he made is not a plea in court.

ABC 7 Amarillo, KFDA NewsChannel 10, and FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, citing the Amarillo Police Department, reported that the homicide unit received information on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, that a woman from Colorado had been shot and buried at an unknown location in Amarillo. Police said they believed the shooting happened inside a vehicle somewhere in the city. Detectives identified witnesses and confirmed details of the report, those outlets reported. They identified Leonard Torres, 48, as a suspect.

Officers found Torres driving the vehicle they connected to the report and took him into custody after a short pursuit, ABC 7 reported. KFDA and FOX 4 described that stop as a short chase. Investigators then went to the 3100 block of Orange Street. KFDA reported the home is in the Hamlet neighborhood. Homicide detectives and crime scene investigators found a burial site behind a detached garage that was under construction and recovered a body. Police identified her as Faith Smith, 31, of Colorado. ABC 7 and FOX 4 reported the body was sent for an autopsy. KFDA reported an autopsy has been ordered. The homicide unit said the investigation is still active.

ABC 7 Amarillo, KFDA NewsChannel 10, and FOX 4 reported that Torres was booked into the Potter County Detention Center on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. An Amarillo Tribune photo caption published Oct. 5, 2026, said he was booked on Oct. 1 on that count and on evading arrest. Those Oct. 1 through Oct. 5 accounts described an assault booking and an open homicide investigation. They did not describe a murder charge.

KAMR/KCIT reported Wednesday evening, Oct. 7, 2026, that Potter County documents now also charge Torres with murder. The station said the papers claim a confidential informant saw him kill a woman and bury her body in the backyard of a house. KAMR reported the documents say that in a recorded statement Torres admitted shooting her and said it was an accident. The station identified the woman as Faith Smith, 31, of Colorado, and placed the burial in the 3100 block of Orange Street, the site Amarillo police had already described. A line in a charging document about what a defendant said is an allegation. It is not a guilty plea. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.