APD investigates 4 slayings in 4 days
Unrelated deaths in different parts of city over the weekend
Albuquerque Police Department detectives have been busy as they investigated four deaths in different parts of the city in as many days.
Officer Simon Drobik, an APD spokesman, said the homicides are not related. No one has been arrested in any of the cases as of late Monday.
“It is a little unprecedented to have homicides back to back to back like that,” he said. “It takes a lot of resources, not just detectives, but also field units to hold the scenes.”
The violence began Friday night when police were called to the Villa Hermosa apartment complex, near Coors and Quail NW, for reports of a deadly shooting.
Arriving officers found Adrian Johnson, 42, dead in the parking lot. Witnesses reported a light-colored Ford Excursion
with a Chihuahua, Mexico, license plate leaving the scene. The SUV had not been found as of Monday afternoon, Drobik said.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Richard Johnson found out that his younger brother — the second-eldest of five siblings — had been killed. Richard, a pastor at a North Valley church, said Adrian had given his life to Jesus, and had helped paint and fix up the church before it opened last December.
But, he said, Adrian had started hanging out with his old crew again and he hadn’t been home much in the past couple of weeks. Adrian didn’t live at Villa Hermosa, Richard said, and he didn’t know what he was doing there. He said he had worried his brother might get hurt or killed.
“Because of my faith, I know what the Bible says about living a certain lifestyle,” Richard said. “I tried not to think that. I tried to think positively, and that he would change before it caught up to him.”
On Sunday morning, detectives began their second homicide investigation of the weekend.
Around 8:15 a.m., officers were called to Menaul NE west of Interstate 25, for reports of a man lying in landscaping rocks next to a sidewalk in front of an office park. When they arrived, they found he had suffered “massive trauma” and was dead, Drobik said. Police are not saying how he died.
Drobik said they believe the man was homeless. He did not have an ID on him, so they are still trying to identify him and find his next of kin, Drobik said.
Kathleen Cates, president of LifeROOTS, a nonprofit providing services to people with disabilities, said the area is frequented by the homeless, who sleep there overnight. She said she frequently finds alcohol bottles and syringes in the parking lot.
“The homeless are spreading from Downtown,” Cates said. “It’s pretty far from Downtown and the homeless shelters, but now they sleep under the freeway bridge.”
Less than 12 hours later — in a neighborhood off East Central, near Wyoming — police were called to a fight that would become the third homicide of the weekend.
A man, who police later identified as 27-year-old Alexander Begay, was found dead at the scene in the 200 block of Wisconsin NE.
Drobik said the man who lived in the home was taken into custody for questioning, but has not been charged with a crime. He did not know how that man and Begay knew each other. The Journal could not reach Begay’s family.
By Monday morning, all that remained on the scene was a faint bloodstain in the driveway and a couple of latex gloves left in the street.
That night, officers were called to reports of a shooting near the Smith’s grocery store near Constitution and Carlisle NE where they found the fourth person who is believed to have been killed.
Drobik said homicide detectives are investigating, but he didn’t immediately have any other information.