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Leland Hust Guilty In Ariana Romero Murder

Leland Hust has been found guilty in the sexual assault and murder of six year old Ariana Romero. According to court documents Ariana Romero and her mother were living in a garage space in a home where Leland Hust and six other lived. Ariana Romero mother went to work and when she returned her daughter seemed to be asleep. When Ariana Romero mother woke up she realized her six year old daughter was dead. Leland Hust who was reportedly infatuated with the six year old girl had sexually assaulted and murdered the girl the night before after her mother went to work. Leland Hust was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a minor and murder. At the first trial the jury could not come to agreement and a mistrial was issued. However at the second trial Leland Hust was found guilty on all charges. Hust is to be sentenced later this year.

Leland Hust More New

Justice at last for the family of a six-year-old New Mexico girl, who was raped and strangled in her Rio Rancho home. Friday night, a jury found a man who lived in that home guilty of her death. “We’re happy that Jade was able to find justice,” said Jessica Martinez, chief deputy district attorney.

The body of Ariana Jade Romero was found bloody and half-naked in 2018, in the home she shared with her mother and at least seven other people. One of those people was Leland Hust, who was 21 at the time.

Prosecutors said DNA evidence pointed to Hust as the killer and Friday night – a jury agreed. This was the second trial after he was found not guilty of first-degree murder last summer. But the jury was deadlocked on two other charges, child abuse resulting in death and rape of a minor.

Prosecutors say the evidence did not change but they were still able to convince this jury of Hust’s guilt on both counts. “It’s really hard to say, you just never know with juries,” said Martinez. “It’s the risk you take when you go to trial and you put it in the hands of a jury.

Hust faces a possible life sentence for the deadly child abuse conviction, along with 18 years for the rape.

https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/hust-found-guilty-of-killing-raping-6-year-old-girl/

Leland Hust Other News

The man accused of raping and killing a six-year-old girl in Rio Rancho was found guilty.

The jury only deliberated the fate of Leland Hust for a few hours Friday before reaching their verdict.

Back in 2018, six-year-old Ariana ‘Jade’ Romeo was found lifeless by her mother. Investigators say Jade was raped and strangled to death in their Rio Rancho home, where she and her mother lived with multiple people.

It would be weeks before they arrested a suspect. Authorities said they got the person responsible, Hust, a roommate of Ariana and her mother. He was charged with first degree murder, rape and child abuse resulting in death.

But during his trial in 2021, the family of Ariana didn’t get the verdict they were hoping to hear.

“We find the defendant Leland Hust not guilty of first degree murder, felony murder.”

The jury was deadlocked on his other charges, leading to tears on both sides. But the prosecution said then they aren’t giving up.

“Disappointed, but we are definitely going to retry the hung charges again,” said the prosector.

Leading to a retrial that started March 2022. During opening arguments, prosecutors said Hust acted alone, and his DNA found on Jade’s body.

“It will become clear why there is no one else who committed these crimes or made the defendant clean up after someone else committed these crimes. The only evidence you will see will point to you finding the defendant guilty at the end of this trial,” said the prosecutor.

Hust’s attorney claimed there is a reasonable explanation as to why his DNA was found on Jade, and pointed out there was also another set of DNA on Jade that belonged to a man investigators were never able to identify.

But after six hours of deliberation, the jury found Hust guilty of the remaining charges.

His sentencing date still pending at this time.

https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/man-convicted-in-death-of-6-year-old-girl-in-rio-rancho-home/6429125/

Melynie Curtis Pleads Guilty to 5 YR’s Old Murder

Melynie Curtis has plead no contest to the murder of her five year old stepson’s murder. According to court documents Melynie Curtis would strangle the five year old boy. When doctors were performing the autopsy on the child they found a series of injuries that showed that the little boy had been abused for sometime. By pleading no contest Melynie Curtis, who is from Sante Fe New Mexico, would receive a prison sentence of thirty years in which she will have to serve twenty five years in prison.

Melynie Curtis More News

A Santa Fe woman has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars for the strangulation death of her 5-year-old stepson. Melynie Curtis pleaded no contest Tuesday to second-degree murder and child abuse.

After the boy’s death in September of 2018, doctors also found a pattern of bruises, a broken nose, and injuries to his genitals indicating ongoing abuse. Investigators say the boy had clearly been tortured.

Curtis has two children of her own, one of which she gave birth to just weeks before her stepson’s murder. Under the plea deal, Curtis will serve 25 of the 30 years she faced.

https://www.krqe.com/news/crime/santa-fe-woman-pleads-no-contest-to-stepson-murder/

Melynie Curtis Other News

More than three years after she was accused of fatally strangling her 5-year-old stepson, Melynie Curtis pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.

Her plea agreement with prosecutors in the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office calls for her to serve a 25-year prison sentence for Jayden Curtis’ death. In exchange for her plea, the remaining charges against her in a nine-count amended indictment were dismissed.

The murder and child abuse charges are classified as serious violent offenses, so Melynie Tyalan Curtis will be required to serve at least 85 percent of her sentence and won’t be eligible to accrue day-for-day credits for good behavior to reduce her prison time beyond 15 percent.

Jayden’s biological mother, Cristina Cowboy, sobbed on the witness stand Tuesday as she testified about the day she gave birth to the boy and the effect his death has had on her.

“As a mother, we are supposed to protect our children from bad people and bad things,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “As a mother, I will never heal from this. I am emotionally, mentally and physically damaged.”

“This case is a tragedy on so many levels, I don’t know that I can even address them all,” state District Judge T. Glenn Ellington said before remanding Curtis — who had been on house arrest while awaiting trial — into police custody.

“This abuse is multigenerational,” the judge said, noting he’d come to know her family history over the years.

“Ms. Curtis herself had been abused as a child and became a mother very young and had some difficulties with that,” Ellington said.

“I don’t pretend to understand the underlying causes or the solutions,” the judge said. “All that is before me is a criminal case that has its own built-in resolution.”

But, Ellington continued, “we know a few things, and that is that child abuse of this nature, unfortunately, has a bad habit of repeating itself generation to generation unless there is intervention … to keep the pattern from repeating.”

Curtis was arrested in September 2018 after medical personnel told police officers her story that Jayden had accidentally drowned in a tub was inconsistent with his injuries.

The boy’s hair and clothes were dry when paramedics responded to her 911 call, according to a Santa Fe Police Department report, and he had no water in his lungs. Curtis had said water was coming from his nose and mouth when she pulled him out of the tub.

The report said Curtis — who had her first baby at 14 and had just given birth to her third child weeks before the boy’s death — later told investigators she had choked Jayden, her husband’s son from another relationship, but hadn’t meant to do it “that hard.”

She was at home caring for Jayden, her newborn and her 19-month-old son when the incident occurred, documents said, while her 6-year-old son from a previous relationship was with his maternal grandmother.

Deputy District Attorney Haley Murphy said Tuesday an investigation revealed Curtis had tortured the boy before strangling him, including striking him all over his body with an object and injuring his genitals.

Emergency responders who were dispatched to the family’s home were able to revive Jayden temporarily, reports said, and he was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center before being airlifted to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. His parents, Royce Curtis and Cowboy, took him off life support a few days later, after hospital staff declared him brain dead.

Melynie Curtis, 23, sat silently during the hearing, speaking only when Ellington asked her direct questions about whether she understood her rights and the consequences of the plea agreement.

Her defense team — led by attorney Todd Farkas — had approached her case from several angles.

Farkas first raised concerns about whether she was competent to stand trial. After she was found competent, he challenged the validity of her indictment, saying prosecutors had violated some rules of the grand jury process.

He didn’t put on a presentation or call any witnesses during her hearing Tuesday.

Ellington granted one request from Farkas; the judge allowed Curtis to remove her jewelry so it could be given to her family before she was taken into custody.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/woman-receives-25-year-sentence-after-no-contest-plea-in-5-year-old-stepsons-strangulation/article_1172d672-a473-11ec-8c16-870ec30b8a41.html

Cristal Cardenas Convicted Of Double Murder

Cristal Cardenas is a woman from New Mexico who was just convicted in a double murder. According to court documents Cristal Cardenas and her boyfriend Luis Flores attempted to hire a hitman to have her former boyfriend killed due to a lengthy custody battle. Well the hitman fell through so Cristal Cardenas and Luis Flores would shoot and kill 34-year-old Mario Cabral and his girlfriend, 32-year-old Vennessa Rodriguez Mora, during the night of March 25, 2018. The bodies of the victims would be found by a teenage girl who ran to a neighbors and phoned the police. Cristel Cardenas and Luis Flores would be arrested, Cristel Cardenas would be convicted and could be sentenced to life in prison at her sentencing hearing later on. Luis Flores stand trial in April 2022.

Cristel Cardenas More News

It’s been almost four years to the day since a teenage girl woke up and discovered the bodies of her mother and her mother’s boyfriend at their home in Garfield. On Friday, a jury found one of the two defendants in the killing guilty on three of the four charges.

Cristal Cardenas, 34, was convicted on one count of first-degree murder, one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and one count of criminal solicitation. The jury also found her not guilty of a second count of first-degree murder. Police say she arranged a hit on her ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter, then aided her new boyfriend in killing the man and his new girlfriend.

According to police, Cristal Cardenas and her new boyfriend, 36-year-old Luis Flores, killed Mario Cabral and his girlfriend Venessa Mora Rodriguez on March 25, 2018. All the while, Mora Rodriguez’s daughter hid in another room. Police said that Mora Rodriguez’s daughter discovered Cabral and her mother the morning after the killing.

It’s unclear how this verdict will affect Flores’ trial, which is scheduled to start in April.

Three hours before the jury returned with their decision, prosecutors representing the state and a defense lawyer representing Cardenas battled it out one last time. Arif Abrar, an assistant district attorney, went first in closing arguments. He outlined the case he and his fellow prosecutor, Linzui Vergara, built over the last five days.

He started by outlining the night and early morning of March 25, 2018, as testified to by Mora Rodriguez’s daughter. The daughter told the jury that she was watching television with her mom and Cabral before going to bed. She woke up a few hours later to the sound of gunshots. The daughter said she hid under a blanket for a while before she fell back asleep, believing the whole thing was a nightmare

When she woke up, she found her mother and Cabral in a pool of blood. She ran across the street to a neighbor’s house and called the police.

Abrar said that evidence and other witness testimony filled in the rest of the story. He said Flores broke into the house, shot Cabral once, shot Mora Rodriguez three times, then turned back to Cabral. Abrar said Flores then shot Cabral in the groin area six times.

Abrar also spent some time refuting a theory that Cardenas’ lawyer suggested at the start of the trial: that is that Cabral and Mora Rodriguez were killed by a drug cartel.

“Have you heard a single word of that?” Abrar said, referring to the testimony that would’ve supported the cartel theory. “Nothing shows that because it’s made up. It’s there to confuse you.”

Instead, Abrar said the motive was much simpler: money and jealousy. He said that Cristal Cardenas was going to lose her house which Cabral built for her and their daughter when they were still in a relationship. If Cabral died, the house would stay in her control, Abrar said.

Abrar said that Cristal Cardenas and Flores intended to hire a hitman and, when that fell through, they did the job themselves. They surveilled Cabral’s house and waited to strike until just after midnight on March 25, 2018.

“This was meticulously planned,” Abrar said.

Cristal Cardenas’ lawyer, Todd Holmes, disagreed. Holmes began his closing argument with a wider view of how prosecutors were going about prosecuting the case

“Don’t let the government shift our 200-year-old right,” Holmes said, referring to prosecutors representing the State of New Mexico.

Holmes also pushed back on any implication that it was the defense’s job to prove an alternative theory. He said that his statements regarding cartel involvement at the start of the trial were one possible alternative. Ultimately, he said the facts of the case didn’t line up with the prosecutor’s narrative.

Holmes also pointed out a lack of physical evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, that would place Flores or Cardenas in the trailer during the shooting. Additionally, he raised questions about the reliability of one of the state’s key witnesses, the man who said Cristal Cardenas paid him to kill her ex-boyfriend.

Closing arguments were also a bit snippy. At several points, prosectors objected to statements from Holmes forcing 3rd Judicial District Judge Conrad Perea to intervene. After the conviction, Cardenas is set to be sentenced at a future date. She could face life in prison.

https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/crime/2022/03/11/jury-returns-guilty-verdict-cristal-cardenas-accused-garfield-killings/7002135001/

Karl Rougemont Charged With Murder

Karl Rougemont has been charged with the murder of Chris Vigil after a shootout in Sante Fe New Mexico. According to police reports Karl Rougemont and Chris Vigil were both employed by the Sante Fe Public Utilities Department when the two were involved in an argument at the side of the road when Rougemont allegedly pulled out a gun and fatally shot Chris Vigil. Now Karl Rougemont has been charged with murder, negligent use of a deadly weapon and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. According to a union rep for the Sante Fe Public Utilities Department said the two men were having issues over the last nine months.

Karl Rougemont More News

A fatal shooting at a busy intersection in Santa Fe during the Monday evening rush hour was prompted by a road rage incident between co-workers in the city Public Utilities Department, according to court records and the city’s website.

Karl Rougemont, 31, faces an open count of murder in the death of Chris Vigil, 40, following the shooting around 5 p.m Monday at St. Michael’s Drive and Cerrillos Road. Rougemont was a collections specialist in the department, and Vigil was an automated meter technician, the city’s website says.

Rougemont and Vigil had gotten into a fight on the roadside before Rougemont is accused of firing at Vigil several times, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed Tuesday by New Mexico State Police investigators in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court. Along with a count of murder, Rougemont is charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon.

He is being held at the Santa Fe County jail without bond and is scheduled to make his first appearance on the charges Wednesday in Magistrate Court.

A union leader said the two men had been having “issues” for at least nine months, and their supervisors and the city’s human resources director were aware of the tension between them.

Gil Martinez, vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3999, said department employees were devastated to learn of the altercation between the two co-workers and Vigil’s death.

“This is a horrible tragedy,” City Manager John Blair said in a statement Tuesday. “The State Police are conducting an investigation into the events that led up to the shooting and we will await their findings.”

“We do not comment on active police investigations or personnel matters,” Blair said in the statement. “We are providing all available options for our City team to access grief counseling and mental health services during this incredibly difficult time.”

Mayor Alan Webber issued a statement urging people to seek counseling or other help if they are struggling.

“Across the country and here in Santa Fe, people and families are dealing with so many difficult circumstances,” he said. “It’s important for everyone in our community to get help if they need it. It could be counseling or other kinds of emotional healing. But please, if you need help, get help. We all need to take care of ourselves and each other.”

The affidavit for Rougemont’s arrest warrant says witness interviews and video of the incident indicate the two men were driving west on St. Michael’s Drive near Cerrillos Road when they stopped, got out of their vehicles and began fighting.

According to a search search warrant affidavit, state police obtained a bystander’s cellphone video that shows the altercation began when Vigil pulled Rougemont out of his vehicle.

At one point, “Vigil was on top of Rougemont striking him with his fist,” the arrest warrant affidavit says. “Rougemont drew a firearm from concealment and fired approximately 5 times. Vigil was shot at least once and Rougemont was able to get up and walk backwards to his vehicle.”

Police were called to the scene shortly after 5 p.m. and began rendering aid to Vigil, the document says. Emergency medical personnel then transported Vigil to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Officers recovered a firearm, two magazines and four fired casings from the scene.

When investigators attempted to interview Rougemont, he requested an attorney, the affidavit says.

Social media comments indicate several people witnessed all or part of the deadly encounter and the response by state police officers, who had been helping respond to calls within the city to give Santa Fe police time to grieve Officer Robert Duran, who died in a crash March 2 while pursing a wrong-way driver on Interstate 25.

Vigil is a 2000 graduate of Capital High School and had worked at the city since 2005, according to his Facebook page. He was engaged to be married. Attempts to reach is fiancée Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Rougemont’s Facebook page says he attended Pecos High School.

Court records show Rougemont filed a personal injury complaint against the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in 2015 claiming an instructor injured his neck and back while demonstrating a defensive tactic on him while he was a cadet at the academy in 2014.

The state paid Rougemont $150,000 in 2018 to drop the lawsuit, according to the online New Mexico Sunshine Portal.

He was “reemployed by the city” in 2018, a spokeswoman said.

Martinez believes working conditions in the city may have played a role in Monday’s violence. He said high employee vacancy rates and a lack of empathy by city management has taken a toll on the labor force.

“There is a lot of pressure on everybody, and it’s having an effect,” Martinez said. “Rank and file employees within the city are so short-staffed, everybody is on edge. So when someone looks at you wrong, you feel like punching them in the face.”

The city’s Public Utilities Department, where the men worked, is among the worst, Martinez said, and has been plagued with disciplinary actions, suspensions and terminations, “one right after another — it never ends.”

He was underwhelmed by the city’s response, Martinez added.

The city should have had grief counselors at the office Tuesday morning, he said, but instead officials sent out a midafternoon email with some “self-care strategies” suggested by the city’s health insurance company.

“There is no compassion,” Martinez said. “It’s just not there. They should have had someone there to deal with it. The bottom line is this administration, they haven’t cared about their employees. There is not a human side to the way they manage the city. They don’t listen to anybody. If there is personnel issues, if there are conflicts, it doesn’t matter to them.”

https://news.yahoo.com/deadly-shooting-monday-involved-two-160300904.html

Jeannine Jaramillo Made Up Kidnapping Story In Fatal Crash

Jeannine Jaramillo is a woman from New Mexico who is in all sorts of trouble as she has been charged with two counts of murder following a police chase. According to police reports Jeannine Jaramillo would be involved in a police chase that started as an alleged kidnapping. The vehicle would wreck killing Santa Fe Police Officer Robert Duran, 43, and retired firefighter Frank Lovato, 62. Jeannine Jaramillo would tell police that she was being held hostage by her boyfriend who somehow escaped when the vehicle crashed. However when police reviewed security footage Jeannine Jaramillo was the only person in the car when it crashed. Jeannine Jaramillo now faces charges :

Two counts of First Degree Murder
Receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle
Aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer
Tampering with evidence.

Jeannine Jaramillo More News

A New Mexico woman was arrested after authorities say she caused a crash that killed an officer and retired firefighter and then lied about having been kidnapped.

Jeannine Jaramillo, 46, faces charges including two counts of first-degree murder, authorities said in a news conference Saturday. After a pursuit, the Wednesday crash on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe killed Officer Robert Duran, 43, and Frank Lovato, 62. Lovato was a retired firefighter from the northern New Mexico city of Las Vegas who was driving a pickup truck and not involved with the pursuit.

Jaramillo had initially said she had been carjacked at knifepoint, according to authorities, and she was released after being treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening.

She was arrested Saturday, New Mexico State Police said, after evidence submitted to a lab Friday showed she was the sole driver of the stolen vehicle involved in the crash.

DNA found on the airbag belonged to Jaramillo and evidence showed there was only one person inside at the time of the crash, according to New Mexico State Police.

Search warrant affidavits filed to seek DNA and evidence from Jaramillo’s cellphone said a police officer saw a woman get out of Jaramillo’s car but no other person, news outlets reported Friday.

“She caused a senseless tragedy that has impacted the community of Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and all of New Mexico, and the pain her actions have caused will not be alleviated by this arrest alone. There will be lasting consequences,” New Mexico State Police Deputy Chief Carolyn Huynh said, KRQE-TV reports.

She also faces charges of reckless homicide by vehicle, receiving and transferring a stolen vehicle, and tampering with evidence, according to the Santa Fe District Attorney’s office.

“I believe the arrest of Jeannine Jaramillo has made our community safer,” said Tim Johnson, chief of the New Mexico State Police. “Her actions put the entire public in danger and took the lives of two dedicated public servants.”

Police had said after the crash they were searching for a suspect described by Jaramillo as a man she’d dated briefly and that he had abducted her from an apartment complex following an argument. But authorities said her story was “suspiciously similar” to her statement in a September 2021 case, when she reported that a man held her against her will with a knife to her neck and he hid on the floorboard.

She was charged at the time with receiving a stolen vehicle, aggravated fleeing and possession of methamphetamine, authorities said.

KOB-TV and other news outlets had reported that court documents said Jaramillo twice previously was involved in pursuits in Cibola County in September and October. She had told officers she had been carjacked but no other person was found.

Prosecutors dismissed both cases “pending further investigation.”

Jaramillo had told KOB-TV Friday that she was abducted, feared for her life and didn’t see the man get out of her crashed car because she blacked out briefly.

“I crawled out the driver side window, I fell to the ground and I looked up and there was the police, and I just ran for my life, and I was screaming, ‘help me,'” Jaramillo said. “I’m crying, I was hysterical, I was in shock.”

Jaramillo had said it was wrong to suggest she was alone in the car.

“I think people should understand that, when you are involved in a situation like that, I don’t think that it is right for them to say things that have their opinion, like that, until they are in a situation like that themselves,” Jaramillo said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeannine-jaramillo-arrested-deadly-crash-lied-kidnapping-new-mexico-police/