By Lou Mattei - SUN News Editor

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Exactly 20 years ago Wednesday (1/26), Chimayó witnessed one of the deadliest days in modern Rio Arriba County history when then-29-year-old Ricky Abeyta shot and killed seven people, including two law enforcement officers and a 5-month-old baby.

The passing of two decades has done little to dim the memory, or the significance, of that day for many of those involved.

Court records and previous SUN reports tell the following story of the killings:

On Jan. 26, 1991, Abeyta’s girlfriend Ignacita Vasquez Sandoval and several of her relatives went to the Chimayó trailer that she and Abeyta had once shared and began moving her things into a U-Haul trailer and three vehicles parked outside. Abeyta arrived and shot his girlfriend in the head while she was kneeling, as if in prayer, then shot her son Eloy Sandoval, who survived.

Meanwhile, Ignacita’s daughter, Maryellen, grabbed her 5-month-old baby and tried to flee. Both were found shot dead, as was Ignacita’s sister, Cheryl Rendon.

Macario “Mickey” Gonzales, Maryellen’s boyfriend and the father of the 5-month-old, had been dropping off a load of Ignacita’s belongings in the U-Haul. He was found in the truck shot in the spine.

Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputy Jerry Martinez arrived at the Abeyta home at about 4:30 p.m. to try to serve a restraining order on Abeyta that Ignacita Sandoval had filed just three days earlier. Abeyta shot him twice in the head.

State Police officer Glen Huber, nearby on an unrelated stolen vehicle case, heard the gunfire and drove to the trailer. He was found shot in the head still seated in his police car with one leg out the door.

State Police Sgt. Chris Valdez, then a patrolman who had been on the force for about two years, said he was finishing up a shift when he got a call of shots fired in Chimayó. Valdez said he’d transferred to the State Police office in Española from the office in Dulce just two or three weeks earlier.

“I got the call, and I knew Jerry (Martinez) and Glen (Huber) were out there, but I had no idea they’d been shot,” Valdez said. “I showed up there and this kid (Eloy Sandoval) came running toward me with a gunshot wound in his chest. I grabbed a sleeping bag I had in my car and wrapped him up. He was freezing cold.”

Valdez said Eloy Sandoval told him the two officers had been shot.

“The first thing I see was this young kid with his chest bleeding,” Valdez said. “It was sort of like chaos. I was calling to Glen (Huber) to tell me where to go, and we didn’t know if Ricky (Abeyta) was still in the house.”

County Magistrate Court Judge Joe Madrid, then a State Police officer, said he, like Valdez, was basically at the end of his shift that day before the shootings. He said State Police got a call from Martinez to assist in the stolen vehicle report. Madrid said he, Huber and another officer responded to the call, then Huber asked Madrid if he would be OK on his own, so that Huber could go check on Martinez, who had left to serve papers on Ricky Abeyta. Madrid said that was fine and said he didn’t know anything was wrong until he heard Valdez’s cruiser zoom by.

“That’s the last time I saw (Huber) alive,” Madrid said. “It was a rough deal, bro. It was awful.”

For nearly 24 hours, as many as 60 police officers searched the area for Abeyta, who turned himself in at the State Police office in Albuquerque around 10 p.m. the following day, according to previous SUN reports.

Valdez said he’s still haunted by the sight of the dead 5-month-old, who was found shot through the head underneath a Chevrolet truck.

“They prepare you in the (state Law Enforcement Training) Academy to see one of your own dead,” Valdez said. “They tell you, ‘You’re going to see a New Mexico State Police officer dead,’ and so you learn to deal with that. But not a 5-month-old baby.”

For Valdez, the massacre remains an important reminder of the extremes to which domestic violence incidents can build.

“Domestic violence escalates,” Valdez said. “Studies show that once violence happens in a relationship, it just escalates and gets worse, and it becomes a vicious cycle, especially when kids are involved. This senseless killing was brought on by domestic violence.”

State Sen. Richard Martinez (D-Española), who at that time was the magistrate judge who arraigned Abeyta and his two sisters when they initially faced charges related to the massacre, also pointed to domestic violence as the root cause.

“These are the types of situations that arise from domestic violence, the types of situations that happen when people get to arguing over petty things such as furniture and personal effects,” Richard Martinez said. “It’s just unfortunate. Somebody just loses it, and it becomes a big old tragedy.”

Valdez said there’s little in police policy or procedure that could have changed to prevent the officers’ deaths.

“They were both ambushed,” Valdez said. “That happens every day, officers are in volatile situations. Statistics show officers are killed more often at a domestic violence call. The parties are already angry by the time they show up.”

Madrid, who is also the godfather of Huber’s daughter, said he learned an existential lesson from the harrowing event.

“The lesson I learned most was after you go to work, it’s like a basketball player — you better have the right mentality and have your game face on because there’s a chance you might not come home,” Madrid said.

In the wake of the Jan. 8 Tuscon, Ariz., shooting that claimed eight lives and wounded 14, the killings remain for some a disturbing reminder of man’s capacity for violence.

“I hadn’t thought about it in a while until that happened in Tuscon a couple of weeks ago,” said Robert Ortega, owner of Ortega’s Weaving in Chimayó.

Ortega said what he remembers most is watching police flood the quiet town.

“I was standing right here watching all the cop cars go by,” Ortega said standing in his store. “I’m used to the silver Santa Fe (County Sheriff’s Department) cars, the gold Rio Arriba (County Sheriff’s Department) cars, and the black and white staters. But there were all these police cars from other districts.”

Information about the shootings came slowly, Ortega said.

“I didn’t really know what was happening,” he said. “I remember throughout the night we were getting bits and pieces of information. It wasn’t like today with instant news.”

Mike Kaemper, now a lawyer in Albuquerque, covered the story for the SUN.

“I was down in Albuquerque at my sister’s house, and they broke in and said there’s been this shooting and a manhunt,” Kaemper said. “I got in my car and drove up straight to the scene.”

Kaemper said he arrived in Chimayó after dark. It was freezing cold and no one knew where Abeyta was, he said.

“Everyone was talking about how (Abeyta) was this incredible sharpshooter,” Kaemper said. “The lore was he could knock the bell off a goat from 100 yards.”

Police later found butts from Abeyta’s brand of cigarettes on a bluff overlooking the scene, which Kaemper described as “crawling” with police and reporters.

“They found like six butts in the dirt up on the bluff, like he was there watching us,” Kaemper said.

Kaemper said reporters from other media made use of early cell phones, a luxury he lacked.

“It was just me, and I couldn’t communicate with anybody,” Kaemper said. “I had police scanner, so I was glued to scanner to hear what was going on. But ultimately I don’t think the heater worked in my car, so I sat in Robert Seeds’ truck.”

Seeds, then and now an Española city councilor, said he was a close friend of Huber’s.

“I had talked to Glen (Huber) earlier that afternoon, and we were going to have a few burgers and a barbecue,” Seeds said. “As soon as I heard what was going on, I went out there. I’ll never forget that.”

SUN photographs show Seeds was a pallbearer at Huber’s funeral.

“Glen (Huber) was a true leader in that he had the respect of all the officers he worked with,” Seeds said. “He’s the type of guy who would stay out there until you were safe before he shut down his shift for the day. Glen epitomized leadership.”

At the trial, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Abeyta, who was found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter. A jury deliberated for 11 days before deciding to give him life in prison, according to previous SUN reports.

“The attorney for Ricky Abeyta, his big thing was to keep (Abeyta) from getting the death penalty,” Kaemper said. “(Getting the death penalty) was a long shot because it was Santa Fe, but if anybody was going to get it, it was going to be him because he killed a baby and two (law enforcement officers). That’s about as bad as it gets.”

The lawyer, Gary Mitchell, whose practice is based in Ruidoso, tried to humanize Abeyta, rubbing his shoulders, and chatting and joking with him, Kaemper said.

“He had to get the jury to see (Abeyta) as a human being rather than a monster,” Kaemper said.

Mitchell did not return a call for this story.

First Judicial District Attorney Angela Pacheco, who helped then-district attorney Chester Walter and former chief deputy district attorney Henry Valdez try the case, could not be reached for this article.

Abeyta remains in state prison in Amarillo, Tex., serving a 146-year sentence with no parole, according to an online inmate database.