Police: Video shows slayings
Security cameras were set up at house near Dixon
SANTA FE — The New Mexico State Police say they have a major piece of evidence in last week’s triple homicide — a video of the killings as they took place.
After the bodies of Abraham Martinez, 36, April Browne, 42, and Kierin Guillemin, 27, were discovered Wednesday night in a house near the village of Dixon, officers also found a digital video recording system that had been set up with security cameras surrounding and inside the house.
One piece of video, according to a State Police search warrant affidavit, shows that at about 12:30 a.m. last Tuesday, May 29, two armed men entered a bedroom while Guillemin was sitting in a chair, Martinez was asleep underneath covers on the bed and Browne was sitting on the bed.
One of the men, wearing a hat and
loose jacket, had a semiautomatic handgun and the other man, in a sweatshirt and with glasses on his head, was armed with a revolver, says the affidavit by Agent Joey Gallegos Sr.
The video shows that Guillemin is shot “immediately” as the men come into the room and the two gunmen “next walk up and shoot April Browne and Abraham Martinez in the head,” Gallegos’ statement says.
The gunmen ransacked drawers “stealing items and suspected drugs,” before shooting each of the three victims once more in the head.
The two men “ransack some more and then leave the room with several items in hand and their handguns,” says Gallegos’ affidavit.
Gallegos wrote that he later determined that the gunmen in the video were John Powell, 34, of Ranchos de Taos, and his brother, Roger Gage, 33, of Arroyo Hondo. Powell and Gage were arrested Friday night in El Prado north of Taos.
Both men are charged with three counts of first-degree murder as well as counts of conspiracy to commit firstdegree murder, aggravated burglary and conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.
The arrest warrant affidavit says two relatives of Martinez went to the house where the bodies were found, located on N.M. 580 in the Cañoncito area east of Dixon, about 6:20 p.m. Wednesday because they hadn’t been able to get in touch with him and wanted to make sure he was OK.
They saw the bodies inside through a window and called police. The Dixon area is off of N.M. 68 between Española and Taos.
Responding officers found blood in the kitchen and outside and that a sliding door to the house had been broken out. One of the DVR cameras was pointed “directly” at the bed where Martinez’s body was found.
“Multiple cellular telephones were observed in the residence as well as drug paraphernalia which had what appeared to be heroin residue on them,” says Gallegos’ statement.
Neighbors in the Cañoncito community just east of Dixon said they had long suspected there was drug activity going on in the home. Several months ago, they said, someone spray-painted “Drug House” on the road in front of the house with an arrow pointing up the driveway.
Childhood home
The house was Browne’s childhood home, her half-brother Kevin Duckworth told the Journal on Monday.
She moved back two years ago and besides a brief time in Albuquerque had lived in the Dixon/Taos area for most of her life, Duckworth said.
A written statement from Browne’s family described the 42-year-old mother of two as someone who loved to create beaded jewelry and cook. Duckworth also said she loved hiking and camping and recalled her taking camping trips along the Rio Grande near Pilar and frequently traveling to Mexico before her children were born.
According to the family statement, she was also the valedictorian of her high school class. She had attended the Chamisa Mesa Private School in Taos.
“She was feisty, very smart, and had a good sense of humor,” Duckworth said. “And she was a free spirit. She did it her way.”
The family also acknowledged that Browne struggled with drug addiction, and that her life choices “probably led to her death.”
In December 2016, Browne was indicted and pleaded not guilty to one count of possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. A bench warrant had been issued for her arrest last February after she violated conditions of release, and the case essentially hit a dead end after that. A 2014 drug paraphernalia charge was dismissed.
The family had heard the stories about the Cañoncito house and didn’t know if anyone else was living there, Duckworth said. He added that family members didn’t know the other two shooting victims or the men arrested for the homicides.
“She was really a very kind-hearted person that was trapped in a bad situation,” Duckworth said.
Friends of Guillemin told the Journal last week that he had moved to New Mexico from New Jersey about five years ago. His father owned property in Truchas, and Guillemin was working at a local garlic farm, they said.
A woman who had dated Guillemin said he had broken his leg in a dirt bike accident last October, started taking prescription pills and apparently went on to using harder drugs like heroin.
A website that commemorates victims of gun violence identified Martinez, the third person killed in Browne’s house, as a man with connections to California and Arizona and whose Facebook page indicates that he worked at restaurants, apparently as a cook. But the Journal could not confirm that this man was the one shot to death last week.
The brothers charged in the killings have only minor offenses on their records, mostly traffic cases.
Gage was charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon in 2013, but the charge was dismissed, and with discharging illegal fireworks the same year.
Under order of Rio Arriba County Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo, the two men are being held without bond in the county jail.