APD: Man staged woman’s murder
Police say suspect killed himself Tuesday morning
Kimberly Pound’s mother told police her daughter let Christopher Trujillo move back in with her to be around their son.
“She wanted him to have a father,” Christine Pound said.
Two months later, on March 23, police say 35-year-old Trujillo beat and strangled Pound before staging the scene to look like a suicide attempt. Pound was taken to the hospital and removed from life support two days later. When police tried to arrest Trujillo this Tuesday morning in her murder, he took his own life.
“The whole thing makes me sick,” Christine Pound said. “I’m glad he’s not here anymore, but I feel sorry for his family, too. This is a tragedy all the way around.”
Pound said Trujillo had abused her daughter in the past before he moved to Oregon and Pound got full custody of their 2-year-old son, Kamden.
She said Trujillo came back into her daughter’s life two months ago.
“He said he wanted to make things work,” Pound said. “We were all worried about it.”
On the night of March 23, Pound picked up her grandson so the couple could go to a concert Downtown.
“They both looked fine, there was nothing wrong, they were both happy,” she said. “So I just drove away.”
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Trujillo later that night called police to report Pound had hanged herself in their northeast Albuquerque apartment after a fight.
Police say rescue crews found Pound unconscious in the back bedroom with a cord around her neck and numerous bruises on her body.
Trujillo was detained at the scene after he told police “several different stories” about what had happened and “didn’t seem overly concerned” with Pound’s condition.
When detectives tried to question Trujillo later, he asked for an attorney.
The hospital called Pound around 1 a.m. to tell her that her daughter had been severely injured and was on life support.
The machines were unplugged two days later and the medical examiner determined she had been strangled, ruling the manner of death a homicide.
Pound said a detective called her Tuesday morning to tell her Trujillo killed himself.
A police spokesman referred all questions on Trujillo’s death to the Laguna Police Department.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “Something you see on TV and not expect to happen to you.”
Pound said she is filing paperwork next week to adopt her grandson, who is now without both parents.
Pound called her daughter, an Albuquerque native, a fighter who had just gotten a job with Bernalillo County.
“It’s really sad, she had just achieved exactly what she wanted to do,” she said. “She was there for two weeks before she was killed.”