State police probing triple homicide
Bodies are found in house near Dixon that neighbors labeled a ‘drug house’
DIXON — New Mexico State Police spent Thursday investigating a triple homicide at a home near Dixon, a small community off N.M. 68 about halfway between Española and Taos.
As of Thursday evening, State Police had not released the victims’ names or genders or information about how they died, but officers are describing the deaths as homicides.
Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the driveway and surrounded an adobe home on top of a hill on N.M. 580 in Cañoncito, about two miles outside Dixon. The bodies were removed from the home early Thursday afternoon.
At the scene, State Police patrol-
man Ray Wilson said someone had stopped by the home Wednesday evening, seen the bodies inside by peering through a window, then called police.
When police arrived about 8 p.m., they entered to confirm the people inside were deceased. The investigation didn’t begin until about 8:30 a.m. Thursday after search warrants were secured, Wilson said.
While there were no suspects at that time, he said police believe the deaths are an isolated incident and local residents should not fear for their safety.
Rox-Anne Sanchez, a yoga instructor in Vadito, identified one of the victims as Kierin Guillemin, whom she said she had been dating for about three years. She said Guillemin moved to New Mexico from New Jersey about five years ago. His father owned property in Truchas, and Guillemin was working as a farmer.
Sanchez said Guillemin had broken his leg in a dirt bike accident last October and was taking medication.
“He started taking prescription pills, and I think it started working into harder drugs, like heroin,” she said. “That’s when our relationship became rocky.”
Sanchez said she last saw Guillemin about a week ago.
She posted a message on Facebook on Wednesday night addressed to Guillemin, before she knew about the deaths outside Dixon.
“Get out of your funk man,” she wrote. “we are sending you strong positive healthy vibes brother ... you are loved by so much (people) here in northern NM.. but you gotta love yourself bro!”
She went on to tell him, “Go buy a piece of land and grow healing food and what your meant to do ... grow herbs, food, spirit and love.”
That’s what Guillemin was planning to do, said Kristen Davenport, co-owner of Boxcar Farm in Llano, where Guillemin worked.
“Kierin may have had some difficulties in recent months, but on Monday he was talking to me about starting his own farm on some land in the area,” she said.
Davenport said she believed Guillemin was 28 or 29 years old and that this was the third summer he worked at Boxcar Farm growing garlic, winter squash, potatoes and other vegetables.
“He was good at growing food and he cared,” she said.
Davenport said she had last seen Guillemin when he left the farm after work on Monday. When he didn’t show up for work on Tuesday and Wednesday, she called police to ask that they perform a welfare check.
“We had been worried about him, his family was worried about him, and his friends were worried about him,” she said.
Davenport said Guillemin loved living in New Mexico’s northern mountains and described him as “outdoorsy.” “Kierin was a very sweet and kind-heartened person. And we really loved him,” she said.
Neighbors suspected drugs might be involved in the killings.
A couple who lives across the street from the home where the bodies were found said there were always vehicles coming and going from the home. Several months ago, they said, someone spray painted “Drug House” on the street in front of the home with an arrow pointing up the driveway.
“That’s an ongoing thing around here,” the man said. “It’s a great community, but like anywhere else there’s drugs.”
“If it would have been dealt with earlier, there probably won’t be three people dead up there,” his wife added, nodding toward the home on the hill.
The Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office did not return a phone message from the Journal seeking information about whether there had been other calls for service at the residence.
Another man said he had one or two encounters with a woman who lived at the home.
“One time I got stuck in an arroyo and her and her boyfriend helped get me out,” he said.
He said he did not know the woman well but thought she had lived in the home for several years.
Not far away in Dixon, the homicides were the talk of the village, which a resident described as a blend of Hispanic families, farmers, retirees and people who moved there in the 1960s and 1970s during the counterculture movement. The quaint village has few businesses — the market, a cafe up the road and library was about it, he said — but had carved a niche as a budding arts community.
“Everyone is shocked over the people that died,” the man said while sitting in the shade of a porch outside Dixon Cooperative Market. “This is a peaceful community, so something like that happening here is pretty surprising.”
He said he did not know who lived in the home, but had been told a woman and a man lived there. Like several others, he said local residents believed the home was a drug house.
In her Facebook message from Wednesday night, Sanchez addressed unnamed people who she said were “making money off destroying people’s lives.”
She wrote: “karma is coming.”