Small Town Murder - #22 - A Deadly Massacre in Chimayo, New Mexico

Episode Date: June 14, 2017

This week, we look at the mountain town of Chimayo, New Mexico, where a man snapped, and began a massacre of everyone around his home. A manhunt ensued, and the results of the case are still felt, today. Along the way, we find out which hole in the dirt that you're supposed to pray to, exactly how much heroin one small town can process, and how many people you can kill & still have the nerve to claim self defense!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week, we look at the remote town of Chamayo, New Mexico, where a man's violent rampage shocked and horrified an entire region. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay is right. You nailed that yay. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. We are pumped this week.

Jimmy, how excited are you? The yay is pouring. It's coming out of my pores, Jimmy. I can't get enough of it. I'm so excited. Last week was bananas. Last week was great. You guys were so awesome on the iTunes reviews.

Wow. Thank you so, so much, guys. Honestly, that's our life's blood. We cannot tell you how helpful that is to us on the business end of things. And, you know, just in our podcast world, that's the currency. Yeah. So thank you, guys. If you haven't done it yet, please get on iTunes.

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You should listen to this podcast. Yeah. Perfect. So anything you want, doesn't matter. Just the five stars, like I said, are immensely, immensely helpful to us. That would be amazing if you could do that. And if that's not enough, if you've signed in, you've given us an iTunes review, they can do more. Tell me.

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present you with some awesome murder if that's a two words that don't go together very often that's fun an awesome tale of murder the murder is not awesome but our telling of it will be awesome you can use awesome in a lot of terrible ways. That's true. Awesome. They describe tornadoes as awesome. It's a universal word. This is. Then this is perfectly.

Then it's a perfect word for it. It's an awesome murder. This really is. Before we get started on that, just want to give the disclaimer that we have to do every single week. This is a comedy podcast. Everything is real. The facts are real.

The research is real. Believe me. Haven't slept for days. It's all good. This is what we do. It's all real, but we do make jokes. We're comedians. We're stand-up comedians. Honestly, our whole thing is we don't want to, you get tired after a while of hearing the stories and it's very depressing. And then he chopped her head off and it's like, good Lord, you got to want to have some humor mixed in there. And that's kind of the take we have on it. So our jokes are never at the expense of the victims or the victims families that's not what we're all about it's not what we're trying to do uh we make fun of small towns we make fun of everywhere yeah because we're

all from shitty small towns that deserve to be made fun of because that's what life is you know what i mean have a sense of humor about it uh we make fun of idiot murderers who screw up maybe a small town bumbling police force that lets a force that lets a murderer go free or kill more or things like that. That's where the humor comes from. So if that sounds good, climb on board. Strap in. Strap in.

It's going to be a fun ride. If not, if you think that true crime and comedy never belong together ever, hey, you know what? That's fine. We understand. We shake hands. We part ways as friends. I'm willing to shake hands.

Let's shake hands. Let them go off on their own. I'm sorry. friends and I'm willing to shake hands. Let's shake hands. Let them go off on their own. Sorry. It's I see a guy walking away like like in an old Nintendo game.

You kick a guy off the baseball team. You'd be walking away. Hands in his pockets. Hoodie up. Shrug shoulders. Yeah. You didn't want to stick around. That's fine.

But for those of you that are left after we've told people to stop listening. Here we go. Because we have a wild tale tonight. Wild tale in Chimayo, New Mexico. Everybody's been there, right? New Mexico? New Mexico, your favorite state. I know that's probably your least favorite state. It's one of the worst.

It's the worst one. There's some bad ones. There's some bad states. We've covered a few of them. We don't have to go over them. You know what? If you live there, you probably know it's bad worse than anyone else. I'm from Colorado, and it's one of the most beautiful of the 50.

It's great. And to get there from here, you have to go through New Mexico, unless you go through Wolf Creek Pass through the Four Corners, which takes a lot longer. It's like two hours longer. Yeah. It's like an hour and a half. We're all going the short distance. We're all going through that shithole of Albuquerque.

I have to say, if you drive through New Mexico, because I've driven through every part of New Mexico, there are parts that are beautiful. There are some. The mountains, it's like a sunny day. It's got to be up there. It's weird because it's 75 degrees outside, but there's snow in the shade and shit like that. It's a weird place where it's kind of like, this is a weird, strange place, and the speed limit's really high, which I enjoy. Or it'll be 65 and sunny, and your skin feels like it's on fire.

It's the weirdest thing. It's definitely a weird spot. It's a bizarre state. Chamayo is in the north central part of the state, kind of dead center up north. It's about an hour and a half from Albuquerque. Okay. It's about, I think about a half hour away from Santa Fe. I feel like I've seen signs for it then.

You may have heard of it because of what goes on there. Nuclear testing? No, no, not nuclear testing. It's worse. It's Catholics. They descend on the place. Oh, really? W no, not nuclear testing. It's worse. It's worse. It's Catholics. They descend on the place. Oh, really? Worse than nuclear.

Really? I'm Italian. I can say anything I want about Catholics. Sorry. It's a nuclear bomb of Catholic people. It's a nuclear bomb of Catholic people. It's up there, too. 6,073 feet in elevation.

So higher than Denver. It's one of those beautiful areas. It's gorgeous. You see, it's picturesque. I mean, it's all just mountains and hills. Sunsets are amazing. They call it, what is it, the enchanted land? Is that what they call it in Mexico?

Or land of enchantment or whatever the fuck it is? I think that's it, land of enchantment. This is where the enchantment comes from, let's say. Not other places. It's not Albuquerque. It's not Santa Fe. Albuquerque is the weirdest place ever. Las Cruces is just as bad. Yeah, but that's a tiny place. Like, Albuquerque is like's not Santa Fe. Albuquerque is the weirdest place ever. Las Cruces is just as bad.

Yeah, but that's a tiny place. Like Albuquerque is like a city. You know what I mean? And I've been to Albuquerque like four years ago I was there and I had to stay over there, stay over a night driving back from somewhere. And it's like it's the 70s there. It's the weirdest place ever. There's no landscape.

It's 30 years behind everywhere. Nobody has any grass. Nobody has any landscape. It's all just dust. And I know there's probably nice parts of Albuquerque. I've never been there. Not what's off years behind everywhere. Nobody has any grass. Nobody has any landscape. It's all just dust. And I know there's probably nice parts of Albuquerque. I've never been there. Not what's off the freeway. What's right off the freeway is wasteland.

Horrible. Let's just say that. Horrible, horrible wasteland. This is in Rio Arriba County, Chamayo. Zip code 87522. Area code 505. I think most of New Mexico is 505. There's very few people that are not enough to exhaust an area code.

Yeah, they have plenty. Plenty of numbers. Come to New Mexico. Plenty of numbers Mexico is 505. There's very few people that are not enough to exhaust an area code. Yeah, they have plenty. Plenty of numbers. Come to New Mexico. Plenty of numbers in our area code. Let me tell you something. We got plenty. Whole fucking place, one area code. We do this easy.

You type seven numbers. You don't have to type anymore when you're here. You just know what it's going to be. And it's one of the biggest states landmass size too. And it's just so far apart from civilization to civilization. You want to order a pizza? 505. You want to call your grandmother?

505. Doesn't matter. Same thing. It's all right. It's all 505. It almost sounds make-believe. It does. It's like Hollywood is 555 for everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This whole place. Sure, 505. No problem. 505. And it's a small town, 5.5 square miles. Oh, goodness. So they're adhering to the area code. 505, gotcha. And it's a small town, 5.5 square miles. Oh, goodness. So they're adhering to the area code.

Yeah, 55. 55 of this. It's an oasis, they call it. It extends from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Rio Grande Valley in there. It's an area. It's a census-designated place, they call it. How does that make sense? What that is, is it's the technical definition.

It's a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. It's certain – like Hawaii has no incorporated towns. They're all census-designated places. It's just literally how you file your paperwork. It means nothing. Gotcha. A town is the people in the center and the things that happen there, whether you call it a town or an unincorporated this or a census designated that.

It doesn't matter. It's the same shit. But that's what it is, basically. It has all sorts of different neighborhoods and everything, and it kind of encompasses an area. Got it. A town, for lack of a better term here. Between this landmark and this river valley.

Exactly. That's it. The name Chimayo is from the Tewa Indian language. It's meaning superior red flaking stone. That's what it means. So they have nice red flaky stone there apparently or did at some point. This area was – it really started getting settled a lot in about 1692 by the Spanish. They started encouraging people to go there. They started saying, hey, everybody, let's go to that place.

It's good. Chamayo. That explains the Catholic part. That explains the Catholic part. And we'll get into the demographics also, which make a lot of sense with the whole thing. Now, what they have here, that is, this is what they're world famous for. And they are world famous for this. Can I guess?

Yes, please. Moccasins and blankets. They do a lot of weaving, as we'll get into later. I'm sure they do. But that's not it. There's a church here, or a mission, or however you want to call it. It's a church. It's not a mission.

It's a historic one? It's a chapel. Oh, it's extremely historic. The El Santuario de Chimayo. Okay. This is, people come every year for Holy Week, the week before Easter. Yep. 300,000 visitors a year.

Holy shit. Come to this place. More than about 50,000 come during Holy Week. For that week only? For this place. And then they disappear? Yeah, pretty much. And then they go back.

This is, the place is a place where people go to pray for sick people. It's one of those places. There's a bunch of them in the Southwest. There's one down by Tucson that my mother used to go to all the time because she'll do that shit. She'll light a candle for someone. It's like Canton during Hall of Fame. Yeah, exactly. That's what this is.

There's no speeches or parades. Probably the food's kind of weird. It's just all Chili's. Everything's Chili's as we'll get into. Applebee's, come on. No, no, not Chili's. The restaurant, Chili's. Because it's New Mexico and everything has Chili's on it. Everything. How white trash am I no, not Chili's, the restaurant. Chili's. Oh, Chili's. I got you. It's in Mexico, and everything has Chili's on it.

Everything. How white trash am I that I guessed Chili's is a restaurant? You could go there with your child, order Cheerios, it'll have Chili's in it. He is a year and a half old. I don't think he wants Chili's. The hatch green Chili's, that shit. Yeah, they'll still have Chili's in there, everything. But they come here.

There's a hole in the church, and apparently the dirt in this hole is – Dirt? It has spiritual – it can heal spiritual and physical ills, it said. Okay. It's just this dirt. They come and pray to this hole and touch the dirt, and apparently that makes everything better. I don't understand. And that's in the church?

That's what happens. That's inside the church, inside this church. The church is very old. It was built privately, actually. It wasn't built by the actual Catholic church proper. It was built by a private person in 1816 so the local people could worship Jesus as depicted in what he thought it should be. It's got like a giant wood-carved Jesus, and it's like a simple Spanish deal. They handed it over to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1929.

It became a National Historic Landmark in 1970. It was called, no doubt, the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States. Interesting. That's kind of like repeatedly it's called that. So it actually has something that people go here for. Also, chili. Like I said, the chilies here. Holy shit, the chilies.

The heirloom chili. Okay. Wow. They are nuts for the heirloom chili. Like I said, the chilies here. Holy shit, the chilies. The heirloom chili. Okay. Wow. They are nuts for the heirloom chili. They've even started in 2003, the Native Hispanic Institute founder started the Chimayo Chili Project to replenish the 300-year-old native seed stock and revive the chili industry in the area. Really?

So they are super dependent on chilies here, which is, I don't know. And it's the heirloom chili that's doing it. It's not the hatch. Because the hatch one is from the county of Hatch. Yeah, this town is where the heirloom is, the whole deal here. They're big there. Also what they're big for there, which is interesting, is they're huge for drugs. So chilies, worship, and drugs. Which drugs? All drugs. So Chili's, Worship, and drugs.

Which drugs? All drugs. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's close to Mexico. Mostly heroin, though. Mostly heroin. This has been for a long time, since the mid-20th century, known for just a haven of drug problems, of heroin distribution.

Apparently, it's up there remote in the mountains, so they go up there, and then you can distribute kind of outwardly. You can send it to the West Coast. You can send it to Colorado. You can ship it east. It seems like a good- Yeah, it's a border state, so that makes sense. Yeah, but it's up north of the border. It's not down by the border. So it's a remote place up in the mountains where you can package, distribute, and process heroin and not be noticed by a lot of people. This place for a long time had amazing amounts of crime here, amazing amounts and record rates of overdose deaths also. Really?

Because, yeah, people were selling it and they were doing it like crazy. There's not a lot of people there, though. No, not the rates of deaths. OK, I got you. So if there's 2,000 people and 10 die, that's a shitload as far as rates go. And also two giant federal drug raids were there to clean it up. And also two giant federal drug raids were there to clean it up. There was, I guess, a gigantic, gigantic raid in 1999 that actually made much of the heroin traffic move to a nearby town away from there. It shifted the actual way of distribution.

Because I guess they figured out their whole deal, so they had to move it, and they moved it. So crime rates have dropped a lot since then. Amazing. There's still a lot of heroin there. Don't get me wrong. A lot of distribution. But the major operation moved and it kind of calmed everything down. The crime rates are still a little high.

But we'll get into that in a moment as we talk about the people population of this place. Twenty five hundred seventy two. Oh, so not very high. Twenty five hundred seventy two. And that's down 12 percent since 2000. Really? So people are fleeing this place. They're done with the drugs.

They're done with the drugs. They're done with the drugs. And two, I mean, it's in the mountains. There's drugs. It's the type of place where you'd kind of be like, let's take our family away from this and I guess move to Albuquerque. Right. When a town is that small, though, and it's infiltrated with drugs, drugs kind of run the town.

Oh, they run the whole town. Yeah. That's how the town operates. And when that operation is moved, that's like moving Walmart out of Arkansas. Then what are you going to do? That's the thing. A lot of these people were probably involved in this. They were probably involved in the processing and everything else.

And that's who else are you going to hire? Fascinating. You're going to hire anybody around who can do it. And a lot of them are migrants, too, as we'll get into the population here. Normal male-female numbers here, about 50-50. Median age is about normal. It's about a year older than average at 38.6. Married and single is a weird thing here with these people.

It's way less married than normal. Normal, it's about 50-50, 35% married population here. So I feel like those are the people who have come to process heroin. I don't know if they're counted in the census, but they're there for that. All the numbers there are low when it comes to that, except for never married, which is much higher. So people stay single there. They just seem to for some reason.

In a town that's based around Catholicism, too. That's a little interesting. It's odd. The married but separated, which is normally about 5%-ish, 0.0%. What? Nobody's married but separated there, or at least won't admit to it yeah it's very very strange the the single with no children but people have children though because there's a lot of you know single population there is 64 single with no children is 16 oh so single with

children is in the 50s is 48 25 percent wait what%. Wait, what? And then the married with no children. Okay, I got you. It's not of the single population. It's of the rest. Got it. When we get into the ages, only about half, not a lot of kids there, only about half the amount, normal amount of zero to 17-year-old people there. So very low in kids. There's a bunch of people like 18 to 21.

I don't know if those are the heroin processors or what the hell they're doing. Maybe the younger ones already overdosed. Maybe. They're gone already. Yeah. It was laying everywhere. They just had a little on their hand. Got on their binky.

You know how that happens. It happens. From time to time, it does. Yeah. I mean, who hasn't had a little heroin on their kid's binky? Come on. All of us that have had kids, I mean, every once in a while. From time to time, they absorb a little.

At some point, your kid's going to get a little heroin on his pinky. That's all I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with that. The 18 to 20 bracket, though, very high. And the 60 to 64 bracket of age, both of them have about three times the amount normal there. Three times the amount? Three times the amount normal. Those are the people that missed the heroin generation.

Yeah, it's very odd. I don't understand. They're aged out of it. Yeah, you're either 19 or 62 in this town. It's a very strange specific thing here. And you know, that may be because of the overdose, too. Maybe. Or that might be people. If there's a huge population

of overdose, generally, when I think of heroin, I'm thinking of people in their 30s, 40s in that, and I realize that nowadays it's much younger. Yeah, the kids, too. But in the 80s and the 90s, it tended to be a generation of older people. I feel like there it was just that heroin was around. It's just everybody everywhere.

Yeah, it seemed like it was a lifestyle thing for a lot of these people. Racially, this town, only 10.61% white. Yeah, that makes sense. Very much lower than the 62%, which is normal. It's New Mexico. It's New Mexico, yeah. 0% black. Yeah. that makes sense. Very much lower than the 62%, which is normal. It's New Mexico. It's New Mexico, yeah. 0% black, 0% Asian. It's not even a damn restaurant in this place. Well, then again,

they don't use chilies. It's hatched chilies. Yeah, they don't use chilies. That's why. The Asians say, no chilies, and then they said, well, you're not allowed in our town at all. I'm sorry. You can't do that. It's 87.4% Hispanic. 87.4%? Very, very, very Hispanic. That's fascinating. It's excessively Hispanic4% Hispanic. 87.4%? Very, very, very Hispanic. That's fascinating.

It's excessively Hispanic or extremely Hispanic. And how much Native American? Not excessively. It's fine. You can have as many Hispanics as you want in your town. I don't care. That seems a lot. Go crazy.

It's just out of whack for what we normally do. Normally in a small town, we don't have 87% Hispanic. That's just not normal. There's no city in this country that's like that. No, not really. It's that skewed. No. That's crazy. It is. It's really, really interesting. I'm shocked that there's not not normal. There's no city in this country that's like that. No, not really. It's that skewed. No. That's crazy.

It is. It's really, really interesting. I'm shocked that there's not more Native American there, too. Two percent. Two percent. Two percent Native American. You'd think there'd be more, but that's still higher than the average. It's only 0.66 percent is the national population of Native Americans.

So that's still a little higher. Religious, 65 percent religious. Very religious there. About 50 percent is the average. 53% of the people there are Catholic. Not a shocker. 0.0% Jewish. 0.8%. There's no Spanish Jews, really? No. It's odd, right? It's strange. You don't see a lot. Geraldo is the only one I know. I don't know if Geraldo works in the heroin processing. I know he's a Spanish Jewish, so that's the one I know.

There's Geraldo and Sammy Davis Jr. is the black Jewish guy. There's no Hector Goldstein? Is that what you're telling me? Not a lot. Not a lot. It's possible. It's possible. 0.8% Muslim.

So there are a couple of Muslims there, which is odd. I wouldn't expect Muslims to, let's go to this mountain town where everyone speaks Spanish, but whatever. 75% Democrat, 22% Republican in the voting, which is about what you'd expect if you're threatening to deport people on a daily basis. Yeah, that's a good point. Or deport their grandmother.

They might not vote for you. That's a possibility. They may lean the other side. It happens, is all I'm saying. But that shows how much that topic and that actual issue divided people. You took Catholic-leaning people and turned them Democratic. Turned them to the party that is okay with abortion. You know what I mean?

So that tells you a lot, hardcore Catholic people. It tells you a lot. Well, also, too, I think it's just in general. Like, the gays are fine. Bring them over. New Mexico is a blue state anyway. It always is anyway. So, i don't know uh economically not doing great here 32 percent of the people there make less than 15 000 a year that's a third that's rough but you don't report your heroin income that's true you don't report heroin income and i feel like those are

people that were maybe working the plants before things got busted. 53% of the people make less than $35,000 a year. So that is rough. That's not easy to do. And wait until we get into the jobs here. To stretch that 12 months. That's rough. And 0% of the people make over $150,000. Zero. Zero percent. Somebody was making that. Somebody, I'm sure, is the guy who owns the bronze shop or something, as we'll get into here in a second. Seven and a half percent unemployment, which is about two percent higher than the national average. $25,833 is the average household income, which is less than half. 27K. That's 26, less than 26, which is less than half the national average.

The jobs there, zero percent of everything. Management, zero percent. Computers and science, zero percent. Legal of everything. Management, 0%. Computers and science, 0%. Legal, 0%. Education, 0%. Everything, 0%. What do they do? Healthcare support, 0%.

There's no management and leadership? They just run amok? 50%, and this is the numbers that we have reported, but 50% personal care and 50% sales office and administrative support. That have no management. That have no management. That have no management, apparently. Just running around selling to the people. Well, management of business and finance. I got it.

That sort of money management, that sort of thing. So, yeah, none of that. I don't know what the hell's going on there. That's extremely odd with that. Cost of living there, as we say, 100 is our base. We'll call that average par. 81 is the cost of living in Chimayo. Housing is a 53 out of 100. So housing is pretty low. The median home cost is about $98,000,

which is just about half of the average, about 183 average. We'll get into what the homes cost there. Not a lot. Most of them are, there's a lot, I mean, 18% of them are between $40,000 and $60,000. So that's not a lot. A $40,000 house, even if you're making $27,000 a year, you can pay that off

in a couple of years. That'd be great, yeah. I don't know what that house looks like. Well, let's find out with the Chimayo, New Mexico real estate report. Let's do it. The average two-bedroom apartment

there is about $660 a month, which is about $400 less than the average. Not a lot of real estate for sale there at all. There's like nothing for sale. I don't understand why. Nobody parks on it and hangs onto it. There is nothing.

Four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,400 square foot, very nice house on State Road 76 is only $239,000. With an address of State Road 76. Yeah, everything's on a state road there. A three-bedroom two-bath house on a just a dirt lot it looks like something out of the good the bad and the ugly that people would you know walk up to on their horse albuquerque yeah lee van cleef would kill your family like it looks like that pretty much 155 000 or a 6.67 acre lot of dirt if you want to just pitch a tent 12 $129,000.

Six acres, that's decent. That's not bad. It was just hilly dirt and dust and sand. It looked really shitty. Now, things to do. Yes. Obviously, the church, you got to go pray to the dirt. Of course.

You do that. You swish that around a little bit. A lot of churches. A lot of churches, a lot of missions, all old Spanish stuff. You can go to Ortega's Weaving Shop. All right. Because there's a shitload of weaving. Just a lot of missions, all old Spanish stuff. You can go to Ortega's Weaving Shop. All right. Because there's a shitload of weaving, just a ton of weaving. And then also, too, you can go to the bronze, like you buy bronze knick-knack shit.

They have a store that does that. That's what there is to do there. You can go to the bronze shop or you can go to the weaving shop or go pray. Or go pray. Either one. Get yourself a statue and then go bring it there and pray to it, I guess. I'm not supposed to do that. And then weave a blanket.

Well, you need a blanket to put down so you can kneel and not hurt your knees. Yeah, yeah. You got to put your knees on something nice. Well, if you're worshiping the dirt hole, you got to do that. Or I'm worshiping the dirt hole. If you're asking the dirt hole for something, never mind. I'm going to offend everybody. That sounds like butt sex.

Yeah, it does. Moving on to crime from butt sex in church, which go hand in hand. Crime. We have property crime is burglary, larceny, theft, slightly higher than average, but nothing alarming. About normal. We get a little higher of property crime in these small towns for some reason. Kids are bored. I don't know what it is. It's got to be, right?

Meth, I think, is involved, too, with these small towns. I'm not sure. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, assault, way higher. Really? Almost double the average. What the hell? Which drugs are still a big issue there, and I'm assuming that is what the issue is with that.

Also Catholicism. Also Catholicism. People are killing each other in the name of Saint somebody. I'm not sure. We don't know that. We're just saying some saint. Now, let us get into our murder, speaking of violent crime. Let's introduce Ricky Abeta.

Okay. Abeta or Beta? Abeta. Abeta. I'm not sure how this is pronounced because I'm terrible with Spanish pronunciations. You are? We're going to go with Abeta. Yes.

I never guessed that. Chamayo is the way you pronounce it because I listen to newscasts to make sure. Take people's bullshit for that. Somebody from New Mexico. That is my favorite thing. You live in fucking New Mexico. You're going to tell me how to pronounce something? How about move to a half-decent place?

Bastard, son of a bitches. Tell me how to pronounce something. Chimayo. Chimayo. So Ricky Abeta is born March 3rd, 1962, which would make him 28 years old in 1991 where we pick up his story. He is a self-employed carpenter, which is not... Listen to these stats on somebody, okay?

He lives in the mountains. He's a self-employed carpenter who is known by authorities to possess a temper and is known as a prolific hunter. Jesus. You add that math problem up, that is a soup. That's somebody that chops somebody up. That is a soup of... A bad-tasting soup.

That's going to give you the shits tomorrow, I think. This soup right here. That's a bad one. It is not great. Did he choose carpentry because of Jesus? Is that what this is? I don't think it is. I think he chose carpentry because he had no other skills. Not that people do that. Some people like carpentry, but I think he was just like, I don't know.

That's the only job that is here. I can say in some cupboards or something. Yeah, and it wasn't even in town because there's no carpentry jobs. Remember, he actually worked in Santa Fe all the time, which is obviously, you know, because there's no jobs here. Yeah. In the past, state police have said that he's been arrested, never convicted of anything, though, which is odd.

He's been arrested on a ton of different charges, including aggravated assault, larceny, harassment by telephone. How do you get arrested on aggravated assault and not convicted? They might have dropped the charges. It might have been. We see that all the time. To get an aggravated charge, though? Well, I mean, that's the charge.

They're charging him with that, maybe to try to get him to plea, and the other guy could have dropped it. The other guy could have changed his story. It might have been a, who the hell knows? There's a million different things. But generally aggravated, the state's like, you don't want to press charges? Well, fucking we will. Yeah, well, I mean, they might not have had evidence.

If this guy doesn't want to testify, it's a small town will. Yeah, well, I mean, they might not have had evidence. If this guy doesn't want to testify, it's a small town. That's such a vicious charge to be washed away. You have no clue what happened there. That's a good point. I mean, some guy could have spit in his face and he punched him and then they called it aggravated assault. I mean, you never know what happened there. But based on his history and what he ends up doing, I'm going to say he probably did something real shitty. And they let him off for no reason.

And I wish he was in prison before this. And harassment by telephone, larceny. So he's just a general dickhead. I've watched that harassment by telephone. Who hasn't done that? I mean, everybody's done that. I've called a pizza place and fucked with people. Yeah, I don't think it was messing with people.

It was probably like yelling at a girlfriend or something like that, I'm imagining, based on his past and what he does in a relationship with a woman named Ignacia Vasquez Sandoval. Okay. He is in a relationship with her. Things are okay for a while. Yeah. They move in together. They live together in 1989. They move in together into his trailer in Chimayo.

So they're living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico, which is the dream obviously that's what we all do heroin runs rampant heroin one drive then when she was a little girl i'm sure she told her mom ever after this is what she wants and i'm sure this was his dream as a small child as well uh so they live happily for a while yeah uh there's a lot of people living in this trailer also just a shitload of people living in this trailer i don't keep your relationship together you bet your ass. Her 14-year-old son, Eloy, lives there. Her 19-year-old daughter, Mary Ellen, lives there. Mary Ellen's 21-year-old boyfriend, Macario, lives there.

And their six-month-old son, Justin, all live there. And Sandoval, Ignacita's 16-year-old sister, Selena, also live there. Can we stop saying and? That's enough people. In a trailer. Yeah. I don't care if it's a double Y. They don't make trailers big enough for six, seven people.

That's just way too many goddamn people in a trailer. So the dream, once again. This guy's coming home from work in Santa Fe to a house full of people. That sounds awful. After carpentry work all day. Awful. With the stripping tools and the chemicals, and he's inhaling that shit all day. Forget about it.

He's covered in sawdust, and he's going to walk in to six, seven people. He's a ticking time bomb is what he is at this point. Six or seven people that already ate his big piece of chicken. Yeah, and he's a dick on top of that. Of course. He's a complete dick, as we know. He's got violent tendencies. He's not a great guy to begin with, and you're adding stressors

to it. This is not terrific, like we said, prolific hunter and general jackass, and it's a little rough. Maybe you just said that assault was somebody aggravated him, and he assaulted them, which I can see happening. That's possible. They were like, he was aggravated and assaulted somebody. They're like, aggravated assault,

right? That's what happened. That's what happened. Let me tell you about Wednesday, January 23rd, 1991. Okay. And I'm going to believe whatever the other person has to say in his aggravated assault case based on this. Okay. On Wednesday, January 23rd, 1991, Ricky and Ignacita have a fight, a big fight, huge fight. She says she wants to leave him. He loses it a little bit and fired three gunshots toward her car and her as she was trying to get in her car.

That's not good. Didn't hit her on purpose because he could have hit her if he wanted to, as we'll find out. But he definitely fired them in her direction to, I guess, let her know that he meant business and liked to shoot at people, apparently. I don't know. He hunted elk and deer normally, but he was hunting women in his driveway on this particular day. I don't know. Yeah, he didn't shoot.

He didn't shoot the car. He didn't shoot her. He shot toward the direction to say, three shots, though, is a lot. That's enough. That'll scare the shit out of you at that point. So she went to the police, thankfully, you know, saying, I'm scared. He just shot at me three times. I want to leave him.

She told a domestic violence hearing officer, Carol J. Vigil, that Ricky had become very angry when she told him that she was moving out of the home and fired the shots at him and asked for a restraining order so she could move out and not be, you know, murdered in the middle of it. They had a fiery relationship the whole time. They have broken up on at least three separate occasions. And during these occasions, Sandoval allegedly, well, it's not really alleged because it's in the court documents. I think it's just she didn't dispute this part.

Nobody disputed this. She would remove all of her things. She would take everything. She would remove all of her things. She would take everything. But each time he asserts that she would also remove most of his things too and take them every time she left. So he thought that she was going to do it again and he was very worried about that in the whole thing where she said she was leaving, which she should – you know what? So they're both at fault.

They're both at fault for that. They fight and she instigates further. She instigates further. It's a very Catholic fight is what it is. And him rather than leaving or whatever he could do, he makes the worst possible decision to take it to a violent level and shoot at someone or whatever. Who knows what other domestic violence was going on

that wasn't the tipping point. And this is in 91? This is in 91. I don't think you go from nothing to shooting in someone's direction. I feel like there's a little bit of physical violence that happens before that. There's a shaking at minimum. There's a shaking at minimum, which I don't know her past or whatever, or if she decided that that was all right with her.

I have no idea what her upbringing is and that sort of thing. There's no way to know that. I mean, that's the sad part. It sounds very like an Italian relationship in New York in the 70s. Kind of, yeah, like a 50s one. Right, a belt comes off, and you hear it clear the belt loops. A snap. Yeah.

Yeah. That was like, you know, charming in an old movie. And you're like, God, that's horrible. That's not charming. No. It was fucking horrific. That'll ruin children for life. He just took his belt off.

Like, that's a weapon. And swung it in her direction. That is not great. Buckle first. Yeah. I mean, think about the honeymooners. Yeah. To the moon, Alice. To the moon. I'm going to punch you in the direction. That is not great. Buckle first. Yeah. I mean, think about the honeymooners. Yeah. To the moon, Alice.

To the moon. I'm going to punch you in the face. I weigh 320. My wife's about a buck 25. You're a tiny, dainty woman. I'm going to come home and she's aggravated. I'm going to punch her in the face because she asked me a question. To the moon. Right to the moon.

Not just like lay you out. He didn't even say, I'll give you the back of my hand or anything. I'll give you a smack. He said I'm going to punch you so hard it will physically lift you off your seat through the roof and atmosphere and on to another satellite.

And that is their joke. That's hilarious. An orbiting rock in space. That's a joke. And everyone's like that's great. I'm going to send you to. That's hilarious. And onto an orbiting rock in space. That's a joke. And everyone's like, that's great. I'm going to send you to John Glenn's footsteps. Remember in I Love Lucy, episodes would end on a big laugh with Ricky putting her over his knee and spanking her.

Right. And her going, ah, and then Lucy, and he's beating her ass. You got some splainin' to do, Lucy. And she's like, oh no, he's really going to beat me up this time. And you're like, this isn't okay. This isn't funny. This isn't okay. This is domestic violence.

Yeah, and she was like a national treasure. People liked her. And you think somebody would be like, can we help Lucy? I don't like Lucy getting physically threatened every week. No wonder why Hispanics got a bad reputation in this country. Jesus Christ. People watched I Love Lucy and they were like, they all beat their wives apparently. And every episode is her fucking up and like trying to fix the mistake.

Yeah, so she doesn't get the shit beat out of her. She's going to beat the living shit out of her. She's on an assembly line jamming chocolate in her face because she doesn't want to catch the wrath of fucking Ricky. Ricky's going to whoop my ass. Jesus. That's not great. So, my God. So, Saturday, January 26th, 1991, this is three days later after she went to get the restraining order.

They tried to serve the restraining order on him Wednesday, and he wasn't home. So, he hasn't been served this restraining order yet. So, this is going down on Saturday, January 26th, 1991. Before Ricky leaves, he goes to work in Santa Fe that day. Before that, he has a gate around his trailer and he locks the home and locks the gate before he leaves because he doesn't, according to him, he doesn't want

her taking his stuff. Sounds like he's trying to control what she can do in her movement and getting her stuff out as well. So if he wanted her to not have his stuff, he'd be like, hey, I'll be there and you can take your stuff and leave. That's what a reasonable person would do if they were concerned about that. Or we'll call the cops and have a neutral party monitor your actions.

Who can we both trust? They can be the mediator. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, this isn't the way to do it. Sheriff's Deputy Jerry Martinez attempts to serve the restraining order that morning also. And this was already after he had left for work. Luckily for him, Ricky's mother, who lives right next door, his mother and his sister live in the trailer right next door. So officer or sheriff, I should say, Martinez thinks about leaving it with his mom, the restraining order, but then decides that that's not proper service and he's going to he's going to wait to see him.

Whatever. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. restraining order, but then decides that that's not proper service and he's going to wait to see him, whatever. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. So they try to do that. Around noon this day, Sandoval comes to collect her things. She brings her family with her also. She brings some family. She brings Eloy, who is her son. The 13-year-old comes.

He cuts the gate with wire cutters. He cuts the, not the gate, the lock on the gate. He tied it up. He cuts that with the wire cutters. He cuts the, not the gate, the lock on the gate. He tied it up. He cuts that with the wire cutters. And then deputy Martinez comes back. He was checking again to see if he could serve the paper. He comes back and gives them permission to enter the house to get her things. He says, why don't you go in there and get it? I have the restraining order. So whatever, I'll keep an eye on things. I'm here. It's fine. So Ricky's mother and his sister, Dora, meet her at the gate, meet Sandoval at the gate,

and they try to keep her from taking – they're saying don't take any of Ricky's things. Right. They're trying to be his eyes and ears with this. Sure. Deputy Martinez, again, has the restraining order, and he says, look, it's valid. It's fine. I'm going to watch her pack up her possessions. Sure.

And then you can look and watch and everything will all be cool and everybody be observers, which seems fine. He's keeping the peace. He's keeping the peace, right? So she's moving out. And along with her, too, is her 25-year-old with Sandoval, Ignacita, 25-year-old younger sister Cheryl. Cheryl's two young children, Roland and Nikki, they were also there. Also, Sandoval had hired Peter Martinez, who was a neighbor that she met that morning in town to assist with the loading. Just a guy to help pick shit up.

I'll buy you a pizza. We have a bunch of women and kids. I've got to pick up this bureau. I've got a TV. I need your help. Yeah, I've got a 1991 TV. It weighs a shitload. It's an enormous TV.

It's only a 25-inch. But I need your pickup. It's going to take three of us. They have a U-Haul and three cars to take her stuff away. So they're prepared. Here's the thing. Ricky should be thrilled about this because that is what I'm saying. A U-Haul coming to take all of that shit and all those people out of the house. You don't even have to do it. You're about to have a vacation, sir. That's what I mean. If he's so miserable and he's so mad at her that he needs to shoot at her, she's going to leave

with all these people. You're going to have to place all to yourself. With nothing in it. Well, that's what someone who needs to control. That's the difference. He doesn't just go, hey, cool, look at me. I can watch TV with my hands down my pants. This is a sane person's thought. Yeah, we're having a sane person's thought of, cool, I'm going to eat whatever I want for dinner and watch whatever I want on TV and do whatever.

No, I'm going to watch porn with the sound up. That's what you're thinking. I know you, that's exactly what you're thinking. I'm going to sit down with all this chemical on me and my lazy boy. That's what normal people are going to think. That's what I'm going to do. He thinks, no, God damn it. I can't allow this to happen. I got to shoot at her. Yeah. So anyway, officer, I keep wanting to say officer, uh, sheriff's deputy Martinez stays with her to watch her. He kind of wanted to make sure everything he heard that he was shooting at her.

Ricky had shot at Sandoval and he's like, let me just make sure everything's fine. Supervises her pack, blah, blah, blah. He never shows up, Ricky, through this whole thing. Really? Until Martinez leaves to investigate a tip he had on a stolen car nearby. So also around this time, an officer, Glenn Huber, state police officer Glenn Huber, stopped by to assist just to watch and see what was going on.

But they both left. Huber just left to drive around and Martinez left to investigate a tip. What state troopers do. What state troopers do. They're just hanging out. Now, Ricky's mother, who was sitting there next door, they kept coming back and forth and back and forth, and they were really into watching the whole

thing here. In addition to that, also, his sister Sandra came. Ricky's sister Sandra came. Her boyfriend Lawrence was there. So there's a shitload of people there. There's a ton of people there. It's a moving party. Everybody's there except Martinez, the deputy. He leaves just about that time Ricky shows up.

Something tells me Ricky was scoping this out and waiting for dude to leave. I'm sure. That's what I thought to me. I just, you know, my personal opinion. Far too convenient for him to show up right as they leave. Right as they leave, and he wasn't there when they're there all day. So he pulls up, and this is what, it's disputed exactly what happened but this is what everything shows and this is what the evidence shows happened. He shows

up and Eloy and Macario were outside the home loading the U-Haul. Macario is the daughter's boyfriend. Right. So is Sandoval's daughter's boyfriend. They're loading the U-Haul. His mother, Ricky's mother and his sister Dora were watching the loading and doing all that

thing. I guess one of his quilts, he had a quilt that fell and it was dropped on the ground by the porch. So Dora got mad about that, the sister, and made a little bit of a scene about that. You know, normal bullshit happens. But Ricky arrives and he walks up to the home carrying a rifle and a revolver. Oh, no. This is what he has in his hand. So everyone's a little like, what the hell's going on here? Now, it is normal for everyone around there to have weapons.

Sure. And he lives in the mountains. And he's a hunter. He's a hunter. But the fact that this is going on and he's walking up with guns, a normal person would know that this isn't the situation to walk up with your guns. People are going to think you're going to shoot them. This is a problem.

Especially since you shot at this lady three days ago. Yeah. You know, it's a little bit of a problem. So apparently there's an altercation with Eloy, the son. Eloy is – I don't know what the confrontation is. Nobody will know. But he says there's some sort of confrontation. At this point, Ricky gets extremely angry and says in Spanish,

and I'm going to mispronounce the balls off of this, but he says, con esto pegan, which means I pay you back, apparently. He's going to pay you back. It's something like, I got something for you, motherfucker. It's the Spanish version of that. Oh, okay. He says this.

He shoots Eloy in the chest and shoulder. The 13-year-old? The 13-year-old shoots Eloy in the chest and shoulder. Then the Mercario had his back to him in the U-Haul truck loading something like, you know, in a U-Haul, you're trying to pack it in there like a U-Haul truck there. Get your money's worth and put everything in a square. Yeah. Ricky shoots him in the back, shoots Mercario in the back.

He falls. So now there are shots going off. Now people are very concerned. There's people swarming everywhere. Sandoval's daughter, Mary Ellen, has her six-month-old Justin in her arms. She runs outside to run away, and they are both shot in the head. This is a six-month-old child and the daughter, who is 18 years old, are both shot in the head as they fled.

They're unclear whether they were killed by different bullets or one bullet passed through both of them. Oh, my God. Which either way, it doesn't matter. It's horrific the evidence does never found that out exactly they could never never figure it out because it's such a mess this scene so now ricky has he's outside he shot a 13 year old yeah uh eloy's still alive by the way at this moment in time uh he shot a 13 year old he shot his girlfriend's daughter's boyfriend which he probably doesn't give a shit about.

And now he shot an 18-year-old girl with her six-month-old son in his arms. Get the fuck out of here. This is bad enough already. Yeah. Right now, turn the gun on yourself, please. It's over. Do it. I'm sorry.

You're not getting out of this, man. I'm not trying to. There's four dead bodies and they're all young. They're all young. You fucked up really bad. This situation is clearly out of hand. And you know what? It's only going to get worse for you.

So, you know, do it. But he doesn't, though, of course. He doesn't. He enters the home, of course, where Sandoval and Cheryl and Selena, they're all in there packing. He yelled and screamed at them and said that they would pay again. And says the same thing again. He shoots Cheryl in the back of the head as she knelt on the kitchen floor. They all said it looked like she was praying, like she was begging him to not shoot her. Shoots her in the back of the head as she knelt on the kitchen floor that said they all said it looked like she was praying like she was begging him to not shoot her yeah shoots her in the head

then he turns the gun on ignacita yeah sandoval his girlfriend first shoots her in the finger uh misses somehow i don't know if there was a struggle or what and then shoots her in the face my god and that kills her so now we are up to five people shot and four six six i'm sorry six people shot and five dead yeah at the moment okay so he leaves the house he takes a second looks around at the scene that he's created which is a monstrous mess and he i don't even know what to say about this he's turned this solution into a horror movie yeah there's no solution except go outside like i said turn the gun on yourself asshole what. Do us all a favor. What he should have done before any of this.

Before any of this is just fucking open your mouth and put the pistol in it. Either that or just act like a normal person. Let this goddamn lady move out and go out with your life. No, I mean, if you're dead set on killing all these people, just end yourself. Go away. What's the point? Why are you doing this? No, I agree.

It's ridiculous. If you're dead set on murder, just kill yourself. Yeah away. What's the point? Why are you doing this? No, I agree. It's ridiculous. If you're dead set on murder, just kill yourself. Yeah. That's my solution. You know what? Good solution. That's it. Kill yourself.

Don't ruin all these people's lives and one that didn't even start yet. Don't do it somewhere where someone's going to have to clean that shit up. That's the point. Go out in the woods and do it and let the animals eat you. That's it. That's perfect. I like that. Don't do it in some goddamn hotel room where some fucking maid from El Salvador is going

to have to clean this shit up. Poor lady. She's got two kids in school. She's trying to feed. She barely speaks English. Let's not do that. Yeah. Don't do that shit.

She's struggling enough trying to put gas on pump five and you're going to fucking cause her more anguish. You're going to have to scrape brains off the wall with a squeegee. Forget that part. She's got to look at it. That part alone is enough. Yeah. Well, she's seen worse in her country.

Anyway. So. That part alone is enough. Yeah. Well, she's seen worse in her country. That's a good point. Ricky also, they think, hit her, hit Ignacy to twice in the back of the head with the gun. So he beat her, too, on top of it, which they don't know if that came before or after.

So we've got one person that's not dead yet. Eloy is in the front. There was three people packing inside. Yes. They're not dead, but everyone he shot at, one is alive out of the people he shot at. Six shot, five dead, alive 13-year-old boy outside. Got it. So he does this.

He looks around. He then leaves the house, sees Eloy outside, shoots him again, this time hitting him in the groin area. Oh, my God. Nice guy, right? At this point, Sheriff's Deputy Martinez pulls up. He comes back. He comes back, and he just pulls up and just gets out of his car. He has kind of one foot in his car, just like he has no idea any of this has happened.

He has no clue. No clue. He can't see anything. He has no idea. He just pulls up. Oh, Jesus. He pulls up out in front. It's a big area.

He has no idea what happens at all. He is shot twice in the head, Deputy Martinez now, while standing next to his police car right when he got out. Holy shit. So now he's shot a baby and a police officer and multiple women. Yeah. You can't get, he is stacking this up worse and worse and worse and worse. What's next?

He's not going to survive in prison. Is he going to go to the chapel and slit the priest's throat and start killing nuns? I mean, what's he going to do next? While he's praying to dirt, like his life isn't bad enough? Unbelievable. So at this point, we have Officer Glenn Huber, who had been in the area. Yeah. And he had been, he decided that he had heard there were shots fired and decided to go check out the scene.

He pulls up. He pulled away. This is the other thing, too. He has no idea what's happened here. He has no clue what's happened. He heard there were shots, but there was also shots Wednesday. So he might have been just firing shit in the air. Or people say, too, this is the other thing, shots come from this property all the time.

They think it's target shooting most of the time because of his hunting. So for shots to come from this property is not odd. It's not crazy. Yeah, everyone's like, well, they shoot things sometimes. So Huber, Officer Huber, stops well away from the scene to get – he wanted to size up the situation before he does anything because he's smart. He's not an idiot. He is at a range of about 200 yards. And this is what ended up happening was he, Ricky ends up going next door to his mother's

house and he sees Glenn Huber, Officer Huber pull up and he shoots him while he's in his car from 200 yards away, hitting him in the head, killing him immediately. That's a hunter. That's a hunter. He was sitting in his car, still had the radio microphone in his hand. Holy shit. And he gets shot in the head, kills him immediately. This is fucking bananas.

It's insane. And Glenn Huber, a couple things about these police officers here. He was in the United States Army, honorable discharge, first lieutenant. He joined the state police in 1981. Goddamn hero. He was a marshal in Pecos. Then he came back to join the state police in 88. He was a senior patrolman.

He had a daughter and he was married. He had two stepdaughters. It's brutal. Everyone loved him too. Everybody said, a quote from one of his workers said, quote, he's the type of guy who would stay out there until you were safe before he shut down the ship for the day. Glenn epitomized leadership. So they all loved him.

Jerry Martinez, also U.S. Army paratrooper. He planned to run for sheriff, actually, in 1992. And he had a wife, two children, a five-year-old, and a two-week-old baby. My God. Two-week-old baby. Robbed. So this is, yeah, these are the people he's killing. And we know the others that we've described already.

Unbelievable. So then he, Ricky, at this point, yeah, these are the people he's killing. And we know the others that we've described. Unbelievable. So then he, Ricky, at this point, you're fucked now. What do you do? What does he do? He fled to the hills behind his mother's house. He takes off in the hills. He knows what he's doing up there. He's a hunter.

He does it. You're not going to survive the rest of your life up there. The rest of your life is very short, by the way. Yeah. So state police sergeant Chris Valdez, who'd been a patrolman for about two years, then pulls up. He's finishing up a shift and they call him in for shots fired. So he pulls up and he sees this scene and he said, quote, the first thing I see was this young kid with his chest bleeding. It was all sort of chaos. I was calling to Glenn Huber to tell me

where to go. And we didn't know if Ricky was still in the house. He's calling Huber who's dead. Yeah. And he's saying, well, we don't know where to go. What's going on? They don't know if Ricky was still in the house. He's calling Huber, who's dead, and he's saying, well, we don't know where to go. What's going on? They don't know if Ricky's in the house. They shot people outside. There's a kid with his chest open. They have no idea what's going on in the house. Holy shit.

He said, quote, I got the call, and I knew Jerry Martinez and Glenn Huber were out there, but I had no idea they'd been shot. I showed up there, and then he talks about the kid. He says about the officers, quote, they were both ambushed. This happens every day. Officers are in volatile situations. Statistics show officers are more often at a domestic violence call. Yeah. Parties are already angry by the time they show up.

That's the truth. That makes sense. To be a cop, the domestic violence has to be the worst thing in the world. Yeah. Because not only do you have to deal. Just based on a normal thing, if I said, hey, go into those people's houses and get in the middle of their argument, you'd be like, fuck you. No. I don't know what that shit's about.

You'd have to go in and deal with it. That's crazy. See, the media will have you believe that officers are fired on more on, like, robberies. No, no. It's domestic. It's situations where people— Robberies are rarely—they rarely catch the robber. Yeah.

Like, he usually gets away, and forensics catches that asshole. People snap in domestics. This shit is where it is. Right. People snap. They're like, well, if she's going to be like this, then fuck it. I don't care anymore. And that's whatever.

He's going to be like that or whatever. So now. If you're in a bad situation, you're in a bad relationship, just fucking stop it. Please. Just get out. Yeah, absolutely. You're putting other people's lives on the line. As we see here.

Now, about 30 police officers surround the trailer. They believed he was still inside. They didn't know. Several hours later, they just decided to storm the place because they had no idea. They found the bodies of the two women inside. Jesus. Also, too, they found Ricky's pickup truck abandoned

outside of town. Yeah. So they were like, okay, what's going on here? Now, Valdez had to enter this home and found the, when they walked up to it, they found the five month old shot through the head. Get the fuck out of here.

That had fallen underneath a truck. Oh, Christ. I mean, how horrible is that to find under a truck? Ugh. Under a truck. I don't even know what to say about that. That's another one. I've said that several times in this because I'm speechless in this.

It's so terrible. Valdez said, quote, they prepare you in the academy to see one of your own dead. They tell you you're going to see a New Mexico state police officer dead. And so you learn to deal with that. Not a five-month-old baby, especially shot in the head under a truck. That's horrible. So he killed seven people, including two police officers, a baby, everything. It is the worst.

It was at the time the worst mass slaying in New Mexico history, in modern New Mexico. I mean, who knows what happened in the 1800s or what they did to Native Americans. In a civilized society where people pay taxes and have day jobs. This is the worst one. So now he is armed in the hills. He's believed to have, because he shot the

officer Huber with a 7mm Magnum rifle. He's got a pretty decent gun there. A.38 caliber handgun, that's his and he took off uh deputy martinez's 357 took his gun he took his 357 so he's got all of those out there uh police major john denko says evidentially evidently the situation became volatile before they got there they were caught by surprise totally off guard so yeah that's the truth i would say so people are obviously shocked around this place.

A neighbor from across the street said, it hurts, man. It really hurts. This is a Luis Garcia. Whatever was going on between him and the woman was something else. Killing the officers and the other people, especially the kids. I don't see why he killed them. Needless. No shit.

Yeah. Other people also, too, they said that Ricky had shot several dogs in recent years. Really? Like from the neighborhood. He'd been hunting, like shooting people's dogs. He's a lunatic. So massive manhunt. Every officer they can find in the area, helicopters, dogs, you name it, full court press.

Yeah. There's a reporter that comes to visit it. And everyone was, he was talking about this reporter was saying how everyone was scared about Abeda. Of course. Because he's such a good sharpshooter. He said, quote, everyone was talking about how he was saying how everyone was scared about Abeyta because he's such a good sharpshooter. He said, quote, everyone was talking about how he was this incredible sharpshooter. The lore was that he could knock the bell off a goat from 100 yards. Oh, how about he could knock the head off an officer from 200 yards?

Yeah, exactly. Hey, now. Look at us. Hey, now. Hey. Police also found his cigarette butts, Ricky's brand of cigarette, on a bluff overlooking the scene that was crawling with officers and reporters. And apparently he was up there smoking.

Yeah. They said the reporter was like they found like six butts up there. It was like he was just up there watching us. So that's what kind of guy this is. That's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. A man that can do that from from 200 yards away is sitting there smoking, watching you. You could start picking people off.

Completely armed. And you know, he was thinking about it. Should I start shooting? I mean, you know. Who should I hit? At dark, they call off the search because they said, quote, it's pretty scary now. You don't want to be out. Now?

And especially, he knows this terrain and you don't. Yeah. No. The sergeant, or major, police major, John Denko said again, quote, we don't know what his mental state is. We know it's not normal. That's the most accurate thing I've ever heard in my life. I don't even know if that's very accurate. No. I know what his mental state is. We know it's not normal. That's the most accurate thing I've ever heard in my life. I don't even know if that's very accurate. I know what his mental

state is. Fucking desperate. Not normal would be really descriptive. Yeah, it's not bad. Sunday morning, the next morning, near Bernalillo, California, New Mexico. Ricky's brother-in-law, Emmanuel Sanchez,

gets a knock on the door, and it's Ricky. Oh my God. He shows up at the door and Sanchez said, quote, he just knocked on my door and said he wanted to just surrender. That's it? That's it. Sanchez and a couple other family members took him to a police station near Albuquerque and surrendered.

And they beat the living shit out of him and then handcuffed him? He turns himself in. Well, that's probably why he went near Albuquerque to knock at then handcuffed him. He turns himself in. Well, that's probably why he went near Albuquerque to not get this guy's buddies. He turns himself in. People are just blown away by this, obviously. Yeah, the Secretary of Public Safety in the area said, quote, this has to have lasting impact. We've made history. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

Yeah, no shit. And people also talk about how- What a horrible history. Yeah. Before this, this is January 91, which is also when the Persian Gulf War happened. Oh, yeah. And they said it was just the Saturday or the Friday before all Persian Gulf. Yeah.

And then from then on, they've just talked about nothing but the shooting in the area because it's a huge deal when there's 2,700 people in an area. I don't recall hearing about it here, though. I'll tell you that right now. It's so close, too. That's why we're doing it. Yeah. I mean, you don't hear about these small towns.

You just don't hear about it. I was watching TV then, and it was just bombs over Baghdad all day. Yeah. Now, Ricky is arraigned on Monday. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, and one count of involuntary manslaughter, which is, that's a pretty, those are hefty. How about all first-degree, God damn it? How about all first-degree?

But they have to do it legally. That's fine. He's charged with, it's first- in the debts of cheryl rendon mary ellen sandoval ignacy de sandoval and glenn huber okay i don't know how the other ones are second degree but those are i don't know the six month old got second degree second yeah they got second that one might have been the involuntary manslaughter because they weren't sure if the bullet went through okay So that's technically. I can see it.

Yeah, because Mary Ellen, who is one of the first degrees. It's not justice, but I can see it. Exactly. That's the thing. Legally, it makes sense. Yeah, second degree was in Marcario Gonzalez and Jerry Martinez. And there was the young boy, Justin, was the involuntary manslaughter. Now, Magistrate Richard C. Martinez orders Ricky to be held without bail,

obviously. He urged, he tells Ricky to, quote, reflect on the lives lost while he's in jail and says, quote, it saddens me yet it also sickens me when domestic violence results in such violent acts which eventually take the lives of human beings, especially those of innocent children.

Get your ass to jail, dickhead. Now, his asshole family, though, 20 members of his family showed up all teary-eyed. What? Saying, you know, that he's a nice guy. I don't care. He's a, quote, a quiet, even-tempered man. His brother-in-law, who took him in, said, quote, I'm still in shock. I can't believe it.

When you get upset, you don't realize what you're doing. He was probably provoked. Probably provoked to kill seven fucking people, including two police officers and a goddamn five-month-old baby. No, sorry, can't be provoked into doing that. You can't. At trial, the prosecutors seek the death penalty, obviously.

Not too much there. Yeah, there's no argument there. No. Ricky testifies a shitload. He testifies? Oh, he testifies. Yeah. He said... What could, he testifies, yeah. What could this asshole have to say? He said that he didn't even notice what was going on when he came in. He went to his mother's house, didn't really see them, and then he had a garage down the hill.

He went to put some paint away that he purchased, and he said he saw the moving operation from down there, and he said he only took his rifle and revolver out of the garage to take to his mother's house because he was concerned Sandoval would pack up all of his shit in the garage, too. So those two guns were the only thing he was concerned about, apparently. He said he had the revolver, and he picked up the way. He just had them. He said it wasn't a big deal. He noticed that some of his clothes were being taken to the U-Haul, and he said he went over to ask them to leave his stuff very politely.

Please leave my Levi's. He's obviously a reasonable guy. Right. He says when he got there, Eloy accosted him with a knife. And during the scuffle, he said his hand was cut twice in the scuffle with a 13-year-old boy. A 13-year-old cut him twice. Who for some reason said that. While he's holding a rifle and a pistol.

He said he forced Eloy to drop the knife. rifle and the pistol. He said he forced Eli to drop the knife. Then he said he saw Marcario in the back and told him that, you know, my clothes are in there. Get my clothes out. And Marcario told him, I don't know anything about that, but quote, don't try to stop us because you won't see tomorrow, is what

he said. So he's saying he was threatened. A man carrying a box of his clothes told a man carrying two guns, you won't see tomorrow. I'm going to beat you to death with these Z Cavaricis. I'm going to beat the living shit out of you with these Jordache jeans. You better back up. Strangle you with your own socks.

You won't see tomorrow. I will choke you with these BBDs. I'll make sure. He then claims that he saw, Ricky then claims that he sees Eloy pointing a handgun at him from the cab of the U-Haul, he says. So he said he reacted automatically by lunging to the side and shooting. He said he didn't know whether he shot him or not. But he said he put another round in the chamber of his rifle and put it on against the porch railing. He said then someone hit him from behind and the rifle slipped off the railing.

And he said as he grabbed at the rifle, it went off by accident. This is a hell of a story. This sounds like my eight-year-old explaining why all the Cheetos are gone. This is so terrible. He said as he was trying to recover the rifle, he somehow reloaded it with another shell by accident. He literally says he unintentionally caused a third round to be loaded, which I don't know how the fuck he'd do that. He said that he was hit again,

and he felt somebody grab his revolver from his waistband. When he turned around to see who hit him, he caught a glimpse of someone walking by with a baby. He said that he was hit on the head again at that point, and as he was hit on the head, the rifle discharged, falling out of his

hands and was a perfect shot and uh you know just hit the baby and her in the head perfect shot unbelievable this guy has amazing no wonder why he's such a good hunter he's just bumbling around hitting shit he's got his hat over his eyes and he's just shooting elk they're falling left and right this sounds like a chris farley movie that's just like he's tossing a gun around and it's just hitting everybody. So he said he goes inside to find out who hit him. He says he encounters. Everybody's dead. Nobody has any answers out here.

I better go inside. I shot everyone out here. This story is such bullshit. Unreal. So he says that when he went inside that Cheryl told him to stop and yelled at him, and he said that Sandoval had his revolver. Right. So Cheryl screamed, no, Ignacita, and covered her face and started to bend over.

And Ricky says he went down with Cheryl to try to duck out of the way, and that Sandoval tried to shoot him but hit Cheryl in the head and stuff. That's the case. This is great. So she blamed that on him. He then says he struggled with Sandoval over the gun and saying that he fired the gun by accident, but her hand was in the way and it shot her in the finger. That was the shot in the finger.

And then he said he saw her running toward the front door with the gun. He says he caught up to her. She bent down and was trying to wriggle out of his grip. She pointed the gun at the defendant. This is the... She pointed the gun at Ricky who he said hit the gun forcing the barrel back toward

her and it went off and shot her in the face. He literally said, I am Bugs Bunny and I tied up Elmer Fudd's rifle in a knot, and it shot. What the fuck is that? I put my finger in the barrel, and it shot backward. So, unreal.

What an asshole. Yeah, Daffy ducking on my beaks on backwards, and that's what happened. He is found guilty on all counts. Yeah, well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Because how is he going to explain what the rifle fell over and hit the officer 200 meters away?

That's the thing. He had no explanation. He said, I don't know anything about that. I don't know. Those guys are dead. They must have shot each other. Yes, that's what happened. Confusion.

It happened. Now, the attorney for his attorney was just trying to keep him from getting the death penalty, which is a long shot because he's killed babies and police officers, which are the two people they generally like to kill you for. Right. There's cops and babies. You can't kill those. He killed both. Right. And one more just to make sure.

Just for good measure. And women, just to make sure that's it here. But they tried to humanize him, apparently, and they really tried to make him out like a person, and the lawyer tried to have his arm around him and shit and really humanize him. And the jury is deliberating on the sentence. Jury deliberates for 11 days on the sentence. What?

11 days. That's not good. That's some deliberation. They come back and they give him a sentence of 146 years in prison without the possibility of parole. That's not enough. It's life in prison without the possibility of parole. It's not enough. It's miserable.

He gets 30 years for each of the four counts of first degree. One of the second degree, he gets 13 years, 10 years for another, and then involuntary manslaughter, three years. So three years for shooting a baby in the head. That's what I was just going to say. In New Mexico, you can shoot a baby in the head and do 36 months. He appeals, of course, saying that they didn't – the trial judge refused to give the jury instructions that he requested, instructing them that they could find that it was self-defense. He tried to claim self-defense.

This whole thing, he said, people were hitting me, guns were going off, I didn't know what was happening. He tried to claim self-fucking defense. That's unbelievable. Wow. They do not have his appeal, obviously. That doesn't matter. For some reason, he is serving his sentence in Walker County, Texas, which I have no goddamn idea.

It looks like March of 2000 he's been serving there. I don't know why. I have no clue why. I could not find why, but he's in Walker County, Texas in their prison system. Eloy Sandoval survived, and he's actually doing well. Oh, good. There's an article on him in 1999. He explains about the crime. He said, quote, it was my mom's ex-boyfriend. She was moving her stuff out of the

trailer. He showed up with all kinds of guns and started shooting everybody. At the point, at this moment, he said the only thing he has of his mother were flashbacks of her murder and her 1973 Grand Prix, Pontiac Grand Prix. So what he did, he says, quote, she always wanted a nice paint job and nice wheels. I always wanted a low rider. I decided to fix up the car in memory of my mom. Whenever I worked on it, I felt peace. At that point, it was organic candy green with cloud shrouded portrait of his mother painted on the trunk and the words in loving memory, mom's dream.

And he says, quote, I'm not going to stop working on it until this it's until it's the center folder a centerfold of lowrider magazine all right so that's nice at least you're listening get that get that car yeah come on my hand hopefully eloi's still around that was 18 years ago fingers crossed there's been articles on the 20-year anniversary it's the chamayo, it's known as. It's a horrible thing. They did, 24 years after that, the town, or the area there, they retired Deputy Martinez's badge in the sheriff's office, and the family was very happy. They said, it's been a long time coming, but it's time to let go a little bit, they said. So they're trying to move on from this. And that's Chimayo, New Mexico, and that's a real piece of shit asshole and a horrible horrible thing that he did that makes

me want to punch him in the dick i mean that may be the worst guy i mean it's horrible i mean all the guys we've covered have been pretty bad vile i don't know what's worse the one that shot the dog in its kennel is pretty bad pretty good but how can you say that's worse worse than the guy that raped and killed a bunch of teenagers and strangled them? They're all terrible. It's so hard to gauge, but this is unnecessary as it comes. With a defense. This is unreal.

With a legit, he tried to get out of it. It's unbelievable, man. Wow. So good thing he's there. If you're in Walker, if you're in Texas County prison, see that guy. Just punch him right in the dick for me. Right in the dick. Right in the dick, and more if you feel like it. I don't care. Keep punching. Keep punching him in the dick. Right in the dick. Right in the dick. More if you feel like it. I don't care.

Keep punching. To the moon, Alice. To the moon, Alice. Put him over your knee. Punch his balls to the moon. There you go. Right to the moon. If you like that story, what you can do is you can get on iTunes. You can give us five stars, tell us anything. Reading makes your eyes tired. We don't care. It doesn't matter. It helps us

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Do you want to do that, Jimmy? Yeah, this week was really, really great on Twitter, Instagram. All of it was really fantastic. Just the all-around interaction. do that, Jimmy. Yeah, this week was really, really great on Twitter, Instagram. All of it was really fantastic, just the all-around interaction. So thanks, guys. But the people that are supporting the show and really, really helping us out a tremendous amount are Arlene So, Lindsey Killips, Lisa White, Debbie Lombardero. Lombardero.

Debbie Lombardero. That's so tough. Lombardero. Lombardero. Hey. Debbie Lombardero. Debbie. Kristen King. Oh,ardero. Lombardero. Hey. Debbie Lombardero. Debbie. Kristen King. Oh, Debbie. Debbie. What are you doing? Oh, Debbie. Come here,

Debbie. Lindsey Brown, Heather Reynolds, Benjamin Thomas Sutton, Terry Hart, Amy Pohanek, or Pohanek? Pohanek? Yeah. She's cool now. Pohanek. Thank you, Amy. Amy Pohanek. Thank you. Tracy Zorag in New Mexico. Matter of fact, her and her husband are there.

I hope you're not here tomorrow. Thanks, Tracy. Yeah, I hope you're not, too. Kellen Englert, Aaron Brown, Ann Brantman, Nita Maria. No, Nita Marie. That's it. Nita Marie Valcheva. Valcheva.

Nice. God, that's such a tough name. It's a cool name. It's a fun one. I like it. Jackie Neal, Anora Thong, Corey Wolf Gaines, Kimberly Schlenke, Kim Shang, Kyle Goedert, Sarah Knudsen, Todd Crago, and Phil DeBeast. Thank you all so, so much. And real quick, the good Reverend Jonathan –

Good Reverend Jonathan Gilliard. He's going through some shit. So keep your head up, buddy. We love you, good Reverend. We love you, man. Keep it up, Rev Gilliard. Everybody give Rev Gilliard a shout out if you're friends with him on Facebook, Twitter. He's a good dude. Tell him, keep it up, brother. We love you. good Reverend. We love you, man. Keep it up, Rev Gilear. Everybody give Rev Gilear a shout out if you're friends with him on Facebook, Twitter. Tell him, keep it up, brother.

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Yes, do this. I'll be at the Tempe Improv June 23rd and 24th with my friend Eliza Schlesinger. So come on out if you want to come holler at me and maybe I can find you some tickets. Definitely. And bitch that he's hosting. Give this guy more time. Both the guys should not be hosting. Right.

That's right. Excellent. So do that. So then, guys, we'll see you not be hosting here. That's right. Excellent. So do that. Until then, guys, we'll see you next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar.

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever

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