Documents: Suspect says he didn’t know he faced BB gun
Second-degree murder charge filed after boy, 15, shot dead
The 18-year-old from Rio Rancho who is charged with fatally shooting 15-year-old Alex Jackson this month told a friend the younger teen had pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at him, according to recently released court documents.
Richard Cresap has been booked into the Sandoval County Detention Center. He is charged with second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. It’s unclear who his attorney is.
Rio Rancho police did not respond to questions about whether a BB gun was found with Jackson, and a city spokeswoman said they cannot comment because the investigation is continuing.
Around 7 p.m. March 10, officers were called to the area of 500 Country Club SE — near the old Club Rio Rancho. When they arrived, they found Jackson had been shot several times, according to a criminal complaint filed in Sandoval County Magistrate Court. He died at the scene.
Investigators talked to a neighbor who said he heard the gunshots and saw a man with his hair in a “man bun” run from the scene and get into the passenger side of a car as it took off.
Then they talked to a woman identified in the complaint as “Rachelle” and another person identified as “JS.”
Abbie Jackson, Alex’s mother, told the Journal on Tuesday that she knew of the family, and Rachelle is Cresap’s mother.
Abbie Jackson said she had heard that her son and Cresap had a falling-out, and Alex was hiding from the older boy and worried he was going to hurt him.
According to the complaint, Rachelle told investigators she and her boyfriend had a fight about Jackson being at the house, and both he and her boyfriend left. She said she told Jackson he could come back, and she, JS and Jackson made plans to go to Target.
JS told investigators that before they could go to the store, she saw Jackson — called “AJ” in the complaint — walking to meet someone who appeared to be her brother, Cresap. She recognized the blonde “man bun.”
“AJ looked over the wall and waved to JS as they were walking,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “JS could not see what Richard was wearing, but confirmed that AJ was last seen wearing a red in color Adidas jacket. A few minutes later, gunshots were heard from the area of the golf course.”
Both Rachelle and JS told the detective Cresap owned a handgun.
On March 25, another person — “JR” — called the detective to tell her that Cresap was with them and had said he “wanted to speak with officers but that he wanted one more night.”
“He also disclosed to JR that he didn’t realize until after the shooting that AJ had a BB gun,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “When AJ pulled the gun from his waistband, he held it at his waist, pointed in Richard’s direction. Richard then pulled his gun out and started pulling the trigger.”
He told JR that he later realized that Jackson’s gun wasn’t real and he had not planned to kill him before that moment. He said he no longer had the gun. Cresap was arrested on March 26.
Abbie Jackson — who described her son as “the light of everyone’s life” — said the weeks since his death have been incredibly hard, and she had a hard time getting answers, support or empathy from the police.“I feel an enormous amount of relief but nothing will ever make this better,” Abbie Jackson said.