Records trace suspect’s ties to RR home
Leland Hust has connections to residence dating back to 2011
Details about the man arrested in the rape and child abuse death of 6-year-old Ariana “Jade” Romeo remain scarce, but police dispatch records show his connection to a few of the more than two dozens calls to the Rio Rancho house where the girl was killed.
In one of those instances, Leland Hust reported witnessing child abuse himself and asked for a police officer to take a statement from him at the home, according to the records.
Since 2009 officers, firefighters and paramedics had visited the home in the 200 block of Moonstone, near N.M. 528 and Northern NE, 35 times. The calls ]
everything from stray dogs and custody disputes to a man coming off a meth binge and fights involving the people who lived there.
At least two of the calls involved Hust and trace his connection to the home back several years.
The first reference to Hust was on an afternoon in September 2011 when Hust, who would have been 13 or 14, returned there after he was reported missing several hours earlier.
Then, in December 2015, Hust called police to report child abuse he had witnessed.
The specifics of this call are unclear, who was involved or if anything came of it, but records show that an officer took a witness statement from Hust at the house.
Following a lengthy interview at the Rio Rancho Police Department on Friday, Hust, 21, was charged with child abuse resulting in Ariana’s death and aggravated criminal sexual penetration resulting in death. His arrest answers some questions in a case that authorities have been tightlipped about over the nearly two-monthlong investigation.
Officers were called to the home the morning of Aug. 11 after Ariana’s mother, Stephanie Romeo, found her body on a foam mattress in a cluttered bedroom converted from a garage. Romeo screamed for the others in the home, and someone called 911 as the homeowner, Winston Scates Sr., 63, tried to resuscitate the girl. She was pronounced dead by rescue crews.
Police say the case against Hust is backed by DNA evidence and statements from those who were at the home when Ariana was killed. Investigators are not actively looking for any other suspects.
While investigating Ariana’s death, detectives discovered separate allegations against Scates, who now faces charges of criminal sexual contact of a different child. He was also arrested Friday night, and both men were booked into the Sandoval County Detention Center.
Neither man has a criminal history in New Mexico, according to online court records.
Capt. Ron Vigil, a spokesman for the Rio Rancho Police Department, said investigators have not told him how the two men are related to each other, but he knows that Hust had been living at Scates’ home for some time.
Criminal complaints detailing the allegations against Hust and Scates were not available Saturday, but police officials said they would be accessible next week.
On Saturday, Vigil said the preliminary autopsy has been completed and investigators believe Ariana was strangled. The autopsy report also found damage to her genitals.
It is unclear when exactly she died, and police have not provided those details.
Police have said Ariana and her mother had not been staying at the home for very long and it is unclear how they knew Scates or anyone else who lived there. The two had lived in a couple of different states before coming to New Mexico over a year ago.
Vigil has said several adults and juveniles were in the house when Ariana was found dead and police records and interviews with neighbors paint a picture of a chaotic home with many people coming and going. A search warrant affidavit filed in the 13th Judicial District Court described the home as “layered in dust” and in “total disarray.”
When police searched the home, they found and seized several laptops, sex toys, pornographic material, marijuana pipes and medicine bottles.
According to the search warrant, one of the items police were interested in was a tablet computer.
“(A child in the home) stated she was on a tablet at the time Leland entered the room, the deceased child was located, to put on a movie for her,” a detective wrote in the affidavit. “Confirming the data on the tablet would verify her account of events and establish a timeline.”
It is unclear exactly what detectives meant or if the tablet had anything to do with the case against Hust.
No one answered the door at the home Saturday, and no vehicles were in the driveway.
But neighbors, who were clearly disturbed by the tragedy and overwhelmed by the media attention, said Scates, his wife and several other people had been coming and going over the past two months.
One neighbor said she saw Scates’ wife return home after the news of his arrest broke Friday night.
Records show this is not the first time Scates has been accused of sexual abuse of a child.
According to an investigative report, police interviewed Scates in February 2011 after a woman reported that he had inappropriately touched her 4-year-old daughter while the two were staying at his home.
Scates denied the claims, and no charges were ever filed against him but police say he hinted at other allegations during the interview.
“I asked if he had ever been accused of something like this before, to which he hesitantly replied ‘yes,’” an officer wrote in the report. “When I asked what the circumstances were he replied that he did not want to talk about it, and shortly thereafter concluded the interview.”
Police say they were unsuccessful in finding any previous abuse cases linked to Scates at that time.