CONVENTION TOLD ABOUT ABQ KILLING
Speech backs Trump’s Operation Legend
Husband of woman who was fatally shot goes on national stage to profess his support of the FBI and Trump.
The husband of a 55-year-old grandmother shot to death outside her West Side Albuquerque home last November appeared on the national stage of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday to declare his support for the FBI and President Donald Trump.
Sam Vigil recounted how he found his wife of 18 years, Jacqueline Vigil, slumped over in her car the morning of Nov. 19 while the killers fled in a Jeep Cherokee that had been blocking the driveway as she tried to leave.
“We think this was a carjacking gone wrong, very wrong,” Vigil said.
To date, no one has been charged in her homicide.
“It is a sad irony that Jackie immigrated to the U.S. for a better life than her native Colombia — only to be gunned down in her own driveway,” said Vigil during his three-minute speech.
Vigil, who has been critical of the Albuquerque Police Department’s progress on the homicide investigation, told the national audience, “For over eight months, there were no arrests and no leads in connection with Jackie’s murder. The Albuquerque police were overwhelmed. They needed help.
“Help arrived when President Trump launched Operation Legend in July of this year,” he said. “Almost immediately, the FBI took over Jackie’s case. In a matter of days, they arrested four people. The fifth — the suspected killer — is in a Texas jail.”
Luis Talamantes, a Mexican national living in Albuquerque has been iden
tified as a suspect in the homicide. His federal public defender did not return a request for comment Wednesday.
At the time Trump announced Operation Legend’s rollout, Talamantes was already in federal custody in San Antonio after having been picked up on illegal reentry charges seven months earlier. Vigil has told the Journal he had no knowledge of that arrest until recently.
Court records show the FBI partnered with APD homicide detectives and the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office as part of the Operation Legend project. The ongoing investigation has focused on Vigil’s death and a series of crimes that occurred around the time of the shooting, federal records state.
So far, four people, including three of Talamantes’ relatives, have been arrested in Albuquerque on federal drug, firearms and illegal immigration charges.
Talamantes pleaded guilty May 5 in his illegal reentry case and is awaiting sentencing in Texas on Sept. 15. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence, citing his alleged role in the homicide.
“I am extremely grateful to President Trump and the FBI for their efforts to deliver justice for Jackie and all the other innocent victims of violent crime. I am honored to support the President because he is supporting us. I know he will never stop fighting for justice, for law and order, and for peace and security in our communities,” Vigil added.
Federal records show Talamantes, who has a criminal record in New Mexico and Colorado, had been deported to Mexico in early September 2019, but returned to Albuquerque weeks later.
He was arrested in San Antonio after Albuquerque police received a Crime Stoppers tip in late January and alerted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement of his immigration status.
On Aug. 19, a filing by federal prosecutors in Talamantes’ immigration case revealed for the first time that he was suspected in the Vigil fatal shooting.